Hard disc (linux) question?

[thor]

Our laptop hard disc dies after about 20min of use with nasty errrr, derrr, derrr noises. Fitting a new one is straight forward, but we can't the original setup discs with XP and office etc - feck.

Is it possible to image that disc and transfer it to temporary storage (I have a NAS box) and then transfer it on to the new disc? Is there some linux CD that would make that easy? Would it work to boot xp afterwards?

It has to run XP and office, it's for Hannah's disertation and she isn't about to start using ubuntu or some such.

Any help gratefully received!

John

[windlepoons1]

Most laptops have a hidden partition on them which allows you to rebuild them to the original factory image without needing disks. The documentation with the laptop should give you the instructions for that.

Best way to save your data is to burn the data you need and forget the rest. Otherwise, you will end up with all sorts of crap you dont need being backed up.

Strange it goes after 20 mins..... I have seen problems where the arms on the HD can get stuck and they just need a wee dunt to move them. Though I would not recommend that until you back it up to be safe !

[thor]

Most laptops have a hidden partition on them which allows you to rebuild them to the original factory image without needing disks. The documentation with the laptop should give you the instructions for that.

Best way to save your data is to burn the data you need and forget the rest. Otherwise, you will end up with all sorts of crap you dont need being backed up.

Strange it goes after 20 mins..... I have seen problems where the arms on the HD can get stuck and they just need a wee dunt to move them. Though I would not recommend that until you back it up to be safe !


I think you might be right. Problem is, the docs are with the discs...

How about this then:

I get a 2.5" hard disc in an enclosure. Then I swap them and plug the old drive into my nas. I can then swap the data onto the NAS (only 30gb so should be quick) and then put the new drive ack in the enclosure. Then I can put the data on it.

Only question is, would the laptop boot?

[windlepoons1]

What type of laptop is it? Make and model?

As for your suggestion. Not sure. If the problem is corruption, it might not work.

Best to try and rebuild to rule our hardware and get a good backup

[gomez]

You can use Maxblast 5, this is a custom version of Acrionis, to image your disk if you have at least one maxtor disk, this is free to download from the Maxtor website. Attach (borrow) a usb external disk (Maxtor) unless your internal disk is already is a maxtor, you may be able to use your NAS if Maxblast recognizes it. Check this in device manager under hardware. Maxblast gives you options to clone ( you could do this if your laptop supports bootable USB or image your disk. Create the image or clone to the external disk. Maxblast also lets you create a bootable version of maxblast on cd/DVD, create this. Swap the internal drive. Boot the CD/DVD maxblast restore the image or clone from the external clone if you took this option. Your system should be restored as before. I do this with my tower pc across ide and sata ok. I've never tried with a loptop, provide you don't erase the original hard disk and back it up before you start, it is worth a try.

one thing to consider if your drive is failing after 20mins it may be a heat problem, you may go through all the image thing for it to do the same, check the fans are all ok before you start. Good luck.

[gomez]

I checked out Maxblast5. Do the following for a more straight forward method.
1. Download Maxblast5 from Maxtor & create bootable CD of Maxblast.
2. Boot maxblast CD, create an image backup on your NAS, Maxblast supports nextworking. If it does not see your NAS use a USB external disk with enough free space for capacity of your 2.5 disk. Select no compression as it is quicker and you only have 20mins.
3. Replace your iffy 2.5 laptop disk with a Maxtor 2.5 disk. If you do not want to use a Maxtor you can buy Acronis True Image to use any make.
4. Boot cd, restore from NAS to new disk. Select "resize" if your new disk is bigger and adjust to suit and make sure you select "Active" for the restore.

Depending on the laptop performance you should have enough time to create the backup, my PC took 6mins to create a backup 30GB. Restoring should be no problem as the disk has been replaced.