HDD is about to fail, bad sectors...

Omina said:

How, exactly? I have a backup of my data using Windows 7 Backup and Restore on my external hard drive. Let's say my original hard drive dies completely, I buy a new one and attempt to restore the files from the external drive. Would this work or not? What exactly are the risks?

Windows Backup and Restore might work and it might not.

The better tools to back up Windows include Aomei, Macrium Reflect, Acronis, etc. Macrium is the favorite on this site.

You ought to back up personal files with a tool designed for that purpose alone. Use an imaging tool to backup Windows and installed applications.

Any or all of them can fail for no apparent reason, but your personal files are likely much more important than Windows files, so take extra care for the former.

ignatzatsonic said:

Windows Backup and Restore might work and it might not.

The better tools to back up Windows include Aomei, Macrium Reflect, Acronis, etc. Macrium is the favorite on this site.

You ought to back up personal files with a tool designed for that purpose alone. Use an imaging tool to backup Windows and installed applications.

Any or all of them can fail for no apparent reason, but your personal files are likely much more important than Windows files, so take extra care for the former.

It's just a data drive and it doesn't have OS on it, only media files and random folders and other related files, not even so much of personal files so that's why I don't really care if it dies, however I'm glad I opened this topic because I will know how to properly maintain my future hard drive.

You can make an ordinary image of all partitions on your boot drive with perhaps 7 mouse clicks, accepting Macrium defaults. That will create 1 big file, probably 15 GB plus in size.

Restoration is a separate and somewhat more complex process.

For a data drive, you needn't get involved with imaging at all....although some do.

Keep in mind that st2000dm008 use smr technology.This means slower writing speeds with applications. Its only for archive.
-https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/

It is ok that you bought it, but personally next time i will give you the advice to buy only cmr tech disks.

boombastik said:

Keep in mind that st2000dm008 use smr technology.This means slower writing speeds with applications. Its only for archive.
-https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seagate-2-4-and-8tb-barracuda-and-desktop-hdd-smr/

It is ok that you bought it, but personally next time i will give you the advice to buy only cmr tech disks.

I didn't even know that if you didn't post that now, but I also heard Seagate hard drives are bad because they have a high failure rate, so that's why I gave Toshiba P300 a shot which I ordered a week ago (they're rebranded Hitachi HDD's)

In my above screenshot, the "Power On Time" was 20357, which was not "so long".

"By default, the total expected lifetime of a hard disk in perfect condition is defined as 5 years (running every day and night on all days). This is equal to 1825 days in 24/7 mode or 43800 hours."

Source: How to Check Drive Health and SMART Status in Windows 10

Matthew Wai said:

In my above screenshot, the "Power On Time" was 20357, which was not "so long".

"By default, the total expected lifetime of a hard disk in perfect condition is defined as 5 years (running every day and night on all days). This is equal to 1825 days in 24/7 mode or 43800 hours."

Source: How to Check Drive Health and SMART Status in Windows 10

I don't see your screenshot