Thinking my internal C drive is dying


  1. Posts : 91
    windows 11 64 bit h22
       #1

    Thinking my internal C drive is dying


    I woke up one morning to a disconcerting noise. The closest thing to the noise I can describe it sounds like someone walking through water or xmas wrapping paper being crumpled. I know the old mechanical hdd in my desktop would start making loud mechanical noises. I suspect these smaller laptop drives with smaller drive heads and platters would make a different noise. I thought at first it was my external usb drive going bad so I spent about 7 hours moving software from it to WD 25EE MY Book USB drive. But when I started to move my computer to my bedroom. (I had closed the lid so it went in sleep mode) I heard that horrendous noise I heard from the morning time. Ugh it was confirmed that noise was coming from my internal computer.

    I had tried before to let windows do an image of the C drive but Window would not let me do it. I can't remember the message from Windows why. So at this point I need to do either a clone or mirror image of Drive C.

    I have several questions. I was going to do the clone to my external WD MY Book. It is a 2.7gb formatted usb drive. Plenty of room for the clone or mirror. My current internal drive Hitachi Travelstar 640gb has three partitions on it A Drive C which has all the Windows 10 system files, HP programs and some misc files that I use to deal with image and movie files. The Drive D holds the recovery software that came with the computer when I bought it. The Drive E has the backup HP programs. My computer came with Windows 7 64 bit Home and Family Addition. But I am currently running Windows 10 64 bit Home edition that was upgraded by MS about two years ago. So Would I still need the recovery partition when I clone the drive C?

    I also have some document files and my music library on Drive C. Should I just copy these files over to the WD My Book drive. Or Should I just have a clean drive except for the utility programs that came with the WD my book hdd?

    What is a good recommendation as far as cloning software goes? Clonezilla is a freeware program but it looks like a lot of hoops to jump to get it to run. Acronis True Image seems to be a popular choice but it is pricey and I hate monthly fees. I already have enough of those each month anyway. I guess beggars cannot be choosy.

    Here is my understanding why I need to clone the drive C. Most computer makers put a proprietary marker on the hdd that came with the computer. So just backing up would not work in the computer. I learned that a long time ago..

    Thank you in advance for any help on this manner. I have not heard the crinkling sound but I think it would be wise to get rid of that Hdd. I bought the computer in Dec 2011 so the computer is almost 6.5 years old. I would think that I am on the outer edge of useful life.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 31,398
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #2

    Sure it's not the fan? To be sure it's the HDD, test it with something like CrystalDiskInfo. You can get it as a Portable App, so you won't need to install it on the (possibly) failing C: drive, you can even run it from a usb.

    https://portableapps.com/apps/utilit...kinfo_portable
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 15,426
    Windows10
       #3

    1ThursdayJC said:
    I woke up one morning to a disconcerting noise. The closest thing to the noise I can describe it sounds like someone walking through water or xmas wrapping paper being crumpled. I know the old mechanical hdd in my desktop would start making loud mechanical noises. I suspect these smaller laptop drives with smaller drive heads and platters would make a different noise. I thought at first it was my external usb drive going bad so I spent about 7 hours moving software from it to WD 25EE MY Book USB drive. But when I started to move my computer to my bedroom. (I had closed the lid so it went in sleep mode) I heard that horrendous noise I heard from the morning time. Ugh it was confirmed that noise was coming from my internal computer.

    I had tried before to let windows do an image of the C drive but Window would not let me do it. I can't remember the message from Windows why. So at this point I need to do either a clone or mirror image of Drive C.

    I have several questions. I was going to do the clone to my external WD MY Book. It is a 2.7gb formatted usb drive. Plenty of room for the clone or mirror. My current internal drive Hitachi Travelstar 640gb has three partitions on it A Drive C which has all the Windows 10 system files, HP programs and some misc files that I use to deal with image and movie files. The Drive D holds the recovery software that came with the computer when I bought it. The Drive E has the backup HP programs. My computer came with Windows 7 64 bit Home and Family Addition. But I am currently running Windows 10 64 bit Home edition that was upgraded by MS about two years ago. So Would I still need the recovery partition when I clone the drive C?

    I also have some document files and my music library on Drive C. Should I just copy these files over to the WD My Book drive. Or Should I just have a clean drive except for the utility programs that came with the WD my book hdd?

    What is a good recommendation as far as cloning software goes? Clonezilla is a freeware program but it looks like a lot of hoops to jump to get it to run. Acronis True Image seems to be a popular choice but it is pricey and I hate monthly fees. I already have enough of those each month anyway. I guess beggars cannot be choosy.

    Here is my understanding why I need to clone the drive C. Most computer makers put a proprietary marker on the hdd that came with the computer. So just backing up would not work in the computer. I learned that a long time ago..

    Thank you in advance for any help on this manner. I have not heard the crinkling sound but I think it would be wise to get rid of that Hdd. I bought the computer in Dec 2011 so the computer is almost 6.5 years old. I would think that I am on the outer edge of useful life.
    Cloning often fails if source drive is failing. Even if it works, you may have cloned corrupted files.
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 18,421
    Windows 11 Pro
       #4

    Make a backup image of the entire drive using Macrium Reflect Free and make the Macrium Rescue USB flash drive to boot from to restore it to a new drive if needed. That's the easiest and most expeditious way of handling it:
    Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free

    I've never heard of a proprietary marker on a hard drive. Hundreds of millions of people have saved system image backups and restored them to new drives.
    Last edited by NavyLCDR; 08 May 2018 at 06:56.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 31,398
    10 Home x64 (22H2) (10 Pro on 2nd pc)
       #5

    1ThursdayJC said:
    Here is my understanding why I need to clone the drive C. Most computer makers put a proprietary marker on the hdd that came with the computer. So just backing up would not work in the computer. I learned that a long time ago.
    Not that I've ever seen. What they do put on the drive are hidden partitions with no drive letter often containing OEM recovery software and/or factory reset images. Then there may be things like a hidden efi partition. A backup of the visible drives will not be sufficient, but an image of all partitions, hidden or assigned letters, is sufficient to be able to recreate the drive on a new one.
      My Computers


  6. Posts : 16,712
    Windows 10 Home x64 Version 22H2 Build 19045.4170
       #6

    iThursday,

    1 I agree with @Bree. Your description of the noise sounds like a description of a fan going wrong - it might be defective or it might have a piece of paper caught up in it.

    2 About "proprietary markers". These haven't been used since about 2000. Some application software would put a file in a specific place on the HDD and then check that the file was still in that place every time it started [their installation disks had similar protection]. This was in response to the huge amount of application "sharing" that went on between friends using freely-available application transfer utilities. Windows never used this protection method and the applications that did were 16-bit applications that you would not be using now anyway.

    Denis
      My Computer


 

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