Possible HDD imminent failure & whether or not to clone

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  1. MeAndMyComputer
    Posts : 1,345
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
       New #1

    Possible HDD imminent failure & whether or not to clone


    Computer:
    HP Pavilion a1600n Win10 desktop (Originally XP Media Center, upgraded to Win7, upgraded to Win10)
    SAMSUNG SP2004C [Hard drive] (200.05 GB) Free space: 154.91 GB
    8/30/16 during boot: Hard drive disk failure is imminent. Insert system disk & press Enter.
    There isn’t a system disk.
    Not that I expected it to work but I connected a Win10 USB recovery drive. Pressed enter: nothing.
    Removed the Win10 USB recovery drive.
    Another not expected to work item, I pressed CTRL-ALT-DEL, pressed Enter.
    The computer restarted and booted into Windows without any problems and the system ran fine.
    I ran Belarc and the hard drive SMART status report is Healthy.
    I checked out whether or not to run error checking.
    It reported you don’t need to scan this drive. We haven’t found any errors on this drive. You can still scan the drive for errors if you want.
    So I left well enough alone. The computer belongs to a friend and I told him to use the computer and if the computer reports the Hard drive disk failure is imminent again even only once to call me.

    I have an ST3160318AS [Hard drive] (160.04 GB) he can have.
    It’s from my desktop computer with upgraded Win10 Pro on it which originally had Win7 Pro.
    It ran fine - I replaced it with an SSD.

    Since my friends computer is running fine again, I’d like to clone his 200 GB HDD to my 160 GB HDD if it isn’t illegal to do so. I have Belarc’s reported Win 10 key for each system.
    --- If that’s possible to do, what external adapters do I need to clone to the 160 GB HDD and just keep it ready in case his hard drive does crash?
    --- I plan on using MRF to do the clone.
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  3. RolandJS
    Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       New #2

    "...I’d like to clone his 200 GB HDD to my 160 GB HDD..." Technically, not going to happen. Now, if you elect to make a full image of said OS partition, and said partition's used byte-space is less than 150GB, that can happen. I lopped of 10GB off the count to allow for some minor future growth.
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  4. RolandJS
    Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       New #3

    "...Hard drive disk failure is imminent.." I'm probably chasing a rabbit down the wrong hole, however, I wonder if the failure is "logical", software caused, rather than hardware caused. I had a similar un-exciting "logical" failure that was remedied by copying off everything [full imaging], Un-allocating the entire HD, re-partitioning it, restoring the saved full images [of "c drive" and "d drive"].
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  6. CountMike
    Posts : 19,518
    W11+W11 Developer Insider + Linux
       New #4

    I would check for bad sectors anyway, there could be some file or logical errors. Defraging the drive may also help.
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  7. MeAndMyComputer
    Posts : 1,345
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    Instead of considering cloning, I think I'll Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive to Install Windows 10 per
    https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2376-usb-flash-drive-create-install-windows-10-a.html and use it if my 160GB HDD is ever needed.
    I just need to make sure though of the following
    The 160GB HDD has my Win10 version on it with it's activated product key
    If I do use the bootable flash drive to do a fresh install of Win10, I believe I'll be able to activate it with the activated product key that he has on his computer now.
    Is that possible?

    Would it be wiser to consider a fresh Win10 install onto an SSD?
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  8. CountMike
    Posts : 19,518
    W11+W11 Developer Insider + Linux
       New #6

    If you don't have too much vested in installed windows, ie. irreplaceable programs etc. it would be best idea to do clean install. Fact that you already have activated windows on that HDD doesn't mean it will stay activated on another computer because activation is connected to motherboard, not HDD.
    A clean install on SSD also means that you can set SATA port to AHCI mode which is very much recommended for SSDs and you would not have to worry about it later.
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  9. MeAndMyComputer
    Posts : 1,345
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       New #7

    "A clean install on SSD also means that you can set SATA port to AHCI mode"
    I have an SSD on my computer and went into setup looking for AHCI mode and didn't see any.
    Is it because I did the regular upgrade to Win10 Pro from Win7 Pro instead of a clean install or have legacy BIOS?
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  10. RolandJS
    Posts : 1,621
    Windows 10 Home
       New #8

    CountMike said:
    I would check for bad sectors anyway, there could be some file or logical errors. Defraging the drive may also help.
    Great idea! Best to check for both physical and software-wise possible causes. Thanks for the reminder! :)
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  12. CountMike
    Posts : 19,518
    W11+W11 Developer Insider + Linux
       New #9

    MeAndMyComputer said:
    "A clean install on SSD also means that you can set SATA port to AHCI mode"
    I have an SSD on my computer and went into setup looking for AHCI mode and didn't see any.
    Is it because I did the regular upgrade to Win10 Pro from Win7 Pro instead of a clean install or have legacy BIOS?
    SATA settings can be found in BIOS. May include IDE (legacy), AHCI and RAID modes.
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  13. MeAndMyComputer
    Posts : 1,345
    Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
    Thread Starter
       New #10

    I found this and will be checking it out
    https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...tallation.html
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