Replacing HD

Hi, My wife's PC's HD is about to crash and I have purchased a new WD Green Caviar 1.5TB HD. Her old HD is only 250 so I know I'm good there. Can I use the same PC to install the new HD and transfer the data off the old HD? What I'd like to do is partition the new HD so that Win7 is on one and the data on another partition. The other issue is that the old HD originally has Vista and we purchased Win7 Home Ed upgrade to overwrite the O/S to the new. Can I use the Win7 disc to install the O/S….or do I have to install Vista first? This is a Gateway unit and I'm not sure they supplied me with a O/S disc of Vista! I do have a USB transfer cable system that I used to transfer the files from my old XP O/S to my new Win7. Would that work in this instance? Thanks for your help! Taz

There are a few variations on a theme for these times, what is best depends on each individual situation, but you don't mention what types of drive they are, are they both Sata, ide, or one of each ? That may make a difference to how we go about this, now the hardest question first, at least for me lol, I tried finding out if you can clean install from an upgrade disk, and honestly I don't know, there are numerous comments, but as I have never dealt with such a disk, I really don't know what will happen, best advice is disconnect (but leave in place) the old drive, then try to clean install to the new drive, if it works great, if it doesn't nothing lost, but the majority of comments I saw said it will probably ask\require the old version disk to continue past x point, but I really don't know personally. Now some may suggest cloning the failing drive, and copying it onto the new drive, this would mean you have exactly what you currently have on a good working hard drive, now if memory serves, WD offer a free version of Acronis for use with their drives, that should have the ability to clone the drive over, but others would be best placed to guide there, as again it's not something I have done, but this would give the fastest and least hassle approach, as once it's done there is no further installing required to get back to where you are now, a clean install (assuming it can be done), will still require you to install all your programs after the OS is installed. Now a belt and braces approach is worth considering if there is data that is that important to you, and that is back up ALL such data NOW, save to disk, thumb drive, anywhere that means it is backed up and safe, because if that drive is dying, there is no way to know how upset it may get once you start touching it's wires, assuming a worst case scenario it could die and take everything with it before you manage to finish the transfer, at least by backing up first you will still have the most important stuff saved. Hopefully this will get you started, and once we know what drive types you have, we can advise further.

Guess I forgot that little tidbit. Both drives are SATA. Can't say I've cloned a drive, but I bought this Easy Transfer Cable by Belkin. I used it when I transferred my files from my old XP PC to a new Win7 system I built. All I did was install the software, connected the PC's with this cable, and it just transferred the files over. My biggest concern is the O/S. As I said, the old PC originally came with Vista and we upgraded it to Win7. Not sure if I have a Vista disk from Gateway. If I do, it will be simple I guess. Probably should look for that….all the important files are backed up. I have an NAS and we also used a cloud service so we should be good there. Going to look for the Vista disk. One tech said where I bought the drive that I should try a clean install with the Win7 disk. It may or may not work. But my other question was, what disk partition letter do I assign to the O/S? I know most programs want to write to C:…so do I assign the O/S partition D:? Thanks, Taz

As far as the cable goes I wouldn't bother, bought similar myself years back for the same reason, but never got it to work for the most part, and when it did work it quoted days to finish the job, ever since then I just slave the drive into the system, easy and quick to to for a temp job, and works so much faster, the cable is only worth it if there are only a small amount of data to transfer, but it seems that you have that backed up now so it's not such an issue now.

Next is cloning the drive, never done it on a regular basis, but it appears very straight forward following on screen prompts, there is a manual on the download page, page 15.1 would appear to be the main section to start the job, but it never hurts to start from the beginning as there may also be other useful info relevant to you, you can find the software and the manual for download on This Page.

What you were told about the installation is pretty much what I suggested, info seems contradictory at times, at least what I have seen anyway, so you now have 2 possible ways to do this, either clone the drive, which would be the fastest option if you have no other reason for reinstalling, or you can try a fresh install, if it works great, if it doesn't it's back to cloning.

Drive letters are awkward when it comes to the C drive, you can change any drive letter except the OS drive, so the easiest way I have found to keep the OS drive as the C drive, is when doing a fresh install disconnect ALL other hard drives, and all memory card readers, as these can get assigned the wrong letter(s), DVD drives are not a concern, mainly as you need it to install, but it can be changed easily afterwards if needed with no risk.

The installation pre selects the drive designation for the OS installation, doing the above helps ensure you keep the C drive as the OS drive, but this is only during a fresh install, when it comes to cloning I honestly don't know what to expect, the fact it's a clone, it should retain the drive designation it has now, then it is a simple job to change the hard drive boot order and priority in the bios when cloning is finished, and you tell the bios that the new drive is to have priority, and should be the 1st boot device, followed by the optical drive, others may prefer having optical drives 1st, then hard drive 2nd.

Draw backs for this are if you leave a bootable disk in, it will pick that up, and it also slows down booting as it scans the optical drive before moving on, on the plus side, if your not comfortable going into the bios and possibly need the optical drive being bootable for rescue disks is anything goes wrong, it means they don't have to touch the bios, so it depends on how happy you are changing such settings, if you are happy to change settings, and you see a floppy drive listed\enabled, and your system doesn't have one (many if not all new systems don't these days), set that to disabled, and disable any further boot options such as network etc, if they are not used, then they are not needed to be enabled, hope this helps a bit anyway.

Ok…we're good to go! I used the WDC utility and all is well (for now). A few sectors wouldn't copy and I don't know what they were but I'm sure we'll find out. For the most part we're back in business. We'll restore whatever is missing. I checked the important files and they seem intact. Could be some games or something. Thanks for the help! Taz

Great news then, the failed sectors are almost certainly the areas that were dying on the old drive, you may never get to know what these were, but with luck they won't cause any problems, but it sounds like you caught it just in time, but it is also a good lesson why back up's are important, you don't always get signs of a dying drive until it's to late and everything is gone.

The only thing to cover now is disposal, I strongly recommend several formats using a tool such as KillDisk, the more sensitive the data (eg banking stuff) the more formats it needs, odds on no one would ever bother looking for info stored on a binned hard drive, but it's not worth the risk these days, I have recovered data from drives that have been formatted 3 or 4 times, so 5 passes is probably a fair figure for peace of mind if there is sensitive data there, and with id theft these days there's no point leaving a door open that could cost you, glad your sorted anyway.

Just 1 last thing to check, you wanted a partition IIRC, you can still do this if you want, just say if you do.

you mean zeroing the drive 8210GUY ? a format doesn't actually delete or overwrite any data on the drive, so i always write at least 1 pass of random numbers and then 1 pass of zero's to the complete drive to destroy any data on it.

Thanks all….! Yes, I did get it in time. I DO have an NAS which backs up all the pertinent info but its the LITTLE things that always get me going like some passwords, settings, email, etc. Anyway, I find that destroying a used HD is best served by taking out one's frustration on it by putting a single bullet right thru it! (Sometimes wish it were that easy for some irritable individuals, but….) So….all is well again and now to chase the woodpecker off my cedar siding! Once again thanks all! This site is the best! Taz

you mean zeroing the drive 8210GUY ?

a format doesn't actually delete or overwrite any data on the drive, so i always write at least 1 pass of random numbers and then 1 pass of zero's to the complete drive to destroy any data on it.

Yes, which is why I suggested killDisk, as it is very thorough, Darik's Boot And Nuke is another highly recommended program for this, I prefer using HDD Low Level Format Tool, but due to the risk of unknowing users they could wipe their own system (last time I used it you could anyway), I try not to suggest it's use unless I know the person is fully warned and ready for what it brings if they use this tool, because it gives NO warning, the second you click go that's it, if you decide a second later that you chose the wrong hard drive to wipe, basically the OS drive, then your stuffed, and face a reinstall, because it will wipe your OS drive while you are actually using it, so although probably the best format tool out there, it has to be used with great care, but I have retrieved data from formatted drives many times now, hence needing numerous passes to be safe.

I wish we had such options here tasman27, it would certainly add a bit of fun to the days tasks lol.