[londonkj]

hello Geeks. i have a hp z600 desktop and had it for a good few years now. it has worked pretty well. recently i have had the message that windows had detected a hard disk problem and to back up everything in an expectation of bad times a coming! it was grinding to a slow halt when i got the first message as i was moving a whole heap of files... anyways i am not in a place where i can easily get computer help so please geeks help!
the c drive that is failing has my os on it... but i also have a 2tb drive in one of the other slots which i purchased not that long ago so it should be ok. it has all my photos on it... am an am photpgrapher so these are precious... i am thinking i could possibly try a few things but wanted to get some advice from GTG... one idea i have it to save all the files onto external hd's. then somehow utilise the newer of the internal hard drives for my os and to then do a clean install or rebuild it. whatever its called these days... then fingers crossed have a faster and better performing bit of kit! if someone out there can help would be amazing. is this the right thing to do?
many thanks in advance. cheers kev.

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One way to do it would be to:

• Use Macrium Reflect free to backup your C: drive into a new folder on your 2TB drive.
  
  
• Next use Macrium Reflect to create a bootable Macrium Reflect CD/DVD to use when you get ready to restore your backup to a new hard drive.
  
  
• Replace the old hard drive with a new one.
  
  
• Boot the computer from your Macrium Reflect CD/DVD and tell it to restore the backup on your 2TB to your new C: drive.
  
  
• Remove the Macrium Reflect CD/DVD and boot from your new hard drive.

That's it. Your computer is now running just like it was but from a new hard drive C:.

Edited by SpywareDr, 02 April 2018 - 03:03 PM.

[SpywareDr]

One way to do it would be to:

• Use Macrium Reflect free to backup your C: drive into a new folder on your 2TB drive.
  
  
• Next use Macrium Reflect to create a bootable Macrium Reflect CD/DVD to use when you get ready to restore your backup to a new hard drive.
  
  
• Replace the old hard drive with a new one.
  
  
• Boot the computer from your Macrium Reflect CD/DVD and tell it to restore the backup on your 2TB to your new C: drive.
  
  
• Remove the Macrium Reflect CD/DVD and boot from your new hard drive.

That's it. Your computer is now running just like it was but from a new hard drive C:.

Edited by SpywareDr, 02 April 2018 - 03:03 PM.

[londonkj]

Hello SpywareDR et al,

thank you for your message, I am still a little nervous about performing this as it seems a rather major intervention especially to the uninitiated like me... a few more questions before I commit... but as my desktop is getting slower and slower and not working too well I need to do something... I am currently in West Africa and no real access to my old computer support people, so it's down to me! :-)

Firstly, is there anything I can do to repair the old hard drive in place? I tried the chkdsk but it didn't complete... would a defrag or something else work do you think? just want to make sure I am doing the right thing.

 

About the procedure you outlined in your message.

1, what would be the likely cause of the hard drive failing like it is and giving me this warning? would it be virus related? or old age? etc...

2, if it is a virus and copying everything to the newer HD would that then copy across too and then I would be in the same position?

3, if I do the procedure will the photos and files I have on the 2TB drive need to be moved off when I do this? I have a few back external HD's which I could use to copy these files...

4, do I need to move the physical drives in the machine? ie the newer one into the old C drives slot/

5, I have had a look at the information I have on the newer HD i purchased and is in the machine, (L: drive) it is a WD - 2TB Desktop SATA Hard Drive - OEM - Green. I purchased it in July 2015. So it may be out of date now. The information states it is good for being a secondary storage drive, does it matter or will it cause issues if  I now use it as my main C: drive?

thanks a lot for your help so far, fingers crossed I can get it sorted!

thanks!

[SpywareDr]

Best Answer

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
Hello SpywareDR et al,
thank you for your message,

You're welcome.
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
I am still a little nervous about performing this as it seems a rather major intervention especially to the uninitiated like me... a few more questions before I commit...

No problem, fire away.
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
... but as my desktop is getting slower and slower and not working too well I need to do something... I am currently in West Africa and no real access to my old computer support people, so it's down to me! :-)

Firstly, is there anything I can do to repair the old hard drive in place? I tried the chkdsk but it didn't complete... would a defrag or something else work do you think? just want to make sure I am doing the right thing.

A) A worn out hard drive cannot be repaired. They are mechanical devices (instead of solid state) ... with moving parts ... moving parts cause wear ... and when that wear becomes bad enough, the drive simply can no longer perform its intended task. It's worn out.

B) Anything that causes excessive drive only exacerbates the problem. You need to get whatever you want off of the drive as soon as possible.
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
About the procedure you outlined in your message.

1, what would be the likely cause of the hard drive failing like it is and giving me this warning? would it be virus
related? or old age? etc...

Probably old age. (See above).
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
2, if it is a virus and copying everything to the newer HD would that then copy across too and then I would be in the same position?

Yes.

To completely avoid that problem would require doing a fresh install of the Operating System (and then all of your other programs, etc.).
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
3, if I do the procedure will the photos and files I have on the 2TB drive need to be moved off when I do this? I have a few back external HD's which I could use to copy these files...

If the 2TB does not have enough free space to hold the Macrium Reflect backup, then yes, you would either have to move a few files off of it, or backup to a different drive. The problem with an external USB drive is they are quite a bit slower than one connected directly to the motherboard with a SATA cable.
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
4, do I need to move the physical drives in the machine? ie the newer one into the old C drives slot/

Yes, I would. That's why said "replace" the old with the new.
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
5, I have had a look at the information I have on the newer HD i purchased and is in the machine, (L: drive) it is a WD - 2TB Desktop SATA Hard Drive - OEM - Green. I purchased it in July 2015. So it may be out of date now. The information states it is good for being a secondary storage drive, does it matter or will it cause issues if  I now use it as my main C: drive?

It wasn't built for use as the main bootable hard drive. You want a WD "Black" (not Green) for your C: drive. It's built for heavy duty use (24/7/365) and has a 5 year warranty.

If the computer itself is getting older, and thus rather slow by today's standards, you might consider installing a SSD (Solid State Drive) instead of a HD (Hard Drive). The difference in speed is astounding. They do cost more but, they are definitely worth it. (Every maching I own now uses a SSD boot drive).
 

londonkj, on Apr 2018 - 07:59 AM, said:
thanks a lot for your help so far, fingers crossed I can get it sorted!
thanks!

You're welcome.
 

[Wafna]

One way to do it would be to:

• Use Macrium Reflect free to backup your C: drive into a new folder on your 2TB drive.

I was having similar problems this past week, and Macrium was able to get through and clone the old hd to the new one; the only change I had to make to your instructions was running chkdsk before running the clone, and formatting the new HD. (other HD imaging/cloning software wasn't smart enough to suggest running chkdsk when they failed to clone, whereas Macrium gave me the *reason* it's first attempt failed.)

Here's the hook: The old HD was a total of 320gb, the new one is 1tb. Having cloned, however, the usable space is the same as on the old HD. How can I extend my C drive to make use of the un-initiated space?

Thanks SpywareDr!

Edited by Wafna, 10 April 2018 - 08:11 AM.

[SpywareDr]

Go into to Disk Management, right click on C: and Extend Volume|Partition. The rest is self explanatory.

[Wafna]

*facepalm* that's absurdly straightforward. Clearly I haven't goofed around with Disk Management at all. Thanks again Doc, and Sorry to London for hijacking your thread!

[edit] extend volume was ghosted, probably 'cause of the previous drive's formatting / partition layout. (There's a recovery partition set as D:\ and HP was kind enough to make their own hidden partition containing it's "tools" past that one, too. Guess I'll just make a simple stand-alone, and create shortcuts, unless you know a fix, Doc? [/edit]

Edited by Wafna, 10 April 2018 - 11:44 AM.

[SpywareDr]

Try this:

• Download and install MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition
• When you open the program, click on "partition wizard".
• Click on the recovery partition, or whatever partition between the unallocated space & the partition you want to extend.
• Click move/resize & a pop-up box will appear.
• Slide the little slider all the way to the right. ("unallocated space after" should decrease all the way to zero).
• Click apply and wait. It took about 5 minutes on my laptop for the partition to move.
• At this point, you'll return to the main screen, and you'll see your C: drive, then unallocated space, then the moved partition.
• Close the program.
• Load Disk Manager, right click on your C: drive and click extend.

 

[Wafna]

Excellent sir! Thanks so much again. Do you know what Chromium is? I've never heard of it, and it force-installed along with MiniTool's Partition wizard, along with some "search helper" chrome extentions for Bing and Yahoo. I uninstalled, but I guess that's the price-tag attached to "free" software.

[SpywareDr]

1) Yes, Chromium is an open-source browser started by Google. And the Chromium OS is an open-source version of Google's Chrome Operating System.

 

2) A bit confused. I just new installed MInitool Partition Wizard Free Edition 10.2 on my laptop as a test and it did NOT install anything else.

[Wafna]

Now I'm confused too. I followed your link. *shrug* either way, thanks again for all your help!

[SpywareDr]

You're welcome.

[londonkj]

Hello G2G!

I have now received my shiny new SSD and I am about to start my installation into my HP Z600 Desktop.

I have opened the box and now realise that the slot is for 3.5 HDD and my new SSD is 2.5 inch.

 

I am in West Africa and its not the easiest location to get parts for this situation,

 

are there any good ideas out there on how to slot this in place?

 

would some sort of plywood spacer do the trick? :-) (something I have access to!)

 

i have attached some pictures to show what the situation is....

 

thanks in advance and looking forward to some innovative clever solutions that will help me out! :-)  as I really want to get my desktop up and runing with the new speedy SSD ASAP!

 

cheers

 

londonkj...

 

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[SpywareDr]

Fasten the SSD somewhere safe with a couple of screws so it doesn't flop around and/or short something out. It doesn't *-have-* to be in a drive bay.

 

You might even fashion some type of L-bracket or whatever out of discarded cans, wire coat hangers, etc. Just be careful you do _not_ get any little loose metal shavings (like from drilling a hole) inside the case or on any electronics board for fear that they might cause a short and ruin everything.

[londonkj]

Hello G2G again...

so, now I have the necessary parts to sort out my desktop....a shiny new Samsung SSD! 250GB

I have staretd to turn on my old desktop to do the macrium reflect stuff....

the computer in its old state is just not doing anything i want.... it has taken about an hour to get to the log in screen.... and then the keyboard or pointer wont work... have checked batteries so its not that...

so.... i will need to alter the existing plan i think.....

all is not lost just yet.... the last time i used it i managed to back up most of the important files off the old HDD onto an external HD....I think i can recover most of the software that i used to have....

 

so... what should I do? take the faulty HDD out.... insert the new SSD... and then install windows etc???

would someone please advise on how I should go about this? bit of a newbie for all this sort of stuff and no IT support here for me in Nigeria! :-)

should I take out the second HDD that I have  whilst I go about all this rebuilding stuff? as its got a lot of important data on it, photographs etc which I want/need to keep!

hopefully someone can help as I would love to get it sorted this weekend!

thanks gang!

cheers!