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Copy Hard Drive


Adie
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Right.. As I seem to be having alot of problems recently with my lap top.. Can I copy my hard drive to my external one?? Then Either return my lap top to factory settings or a year ago or whatever....

Then reinstall my programs, films, pics, porn etc from the external one to the lap top???

Can this be done?

Cheers

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Right.. As I seem to be having alot of problems recently with my lap top.. Can I copy my hard drive to my external one?? Then Either return my lap top to factory settings or a year ago or whatever....

Then reinstall my programs, films, pics, porn etc from the external one to the lap top???

Can this be done?

Cheers

Yes... well, the data can all be backed up no problems.

Do you have the operating system, or some sort of recovery CD that came with the laptop?

Do you have the programs on their original CDs or install files?

D

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Data files are the only ones that you can do that with really (letters, spreadsheets, porn etc), your programs (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc etc) will need to be freshly installed to ensure all the associated drivers get 'hooked up' again properly, and registry entries are made properly.

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As long as you know where all your data files are from a directory/folder point of view then its a piece of ..... just copy em all to your ext drive, recover your disc copy them back, BUT, as Derek says, make sure you have all the reinstall media and serial numbers etc to reinstall all the progs that you have installed since owning the machine

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As long as you know where all your data files are from a directory/folder point of view then its a piece of ..... just copy em all to your ext drive, recover your disc copy them back, BUT, as Derek says, make sure you have all the reinstall media and serial numbers etc to reinstall all the progs that you have installed since owning the machine

I'm sorry mate but I have NO idea what that means :blush:

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oooops

OK if you have always just let your machine decide where to save everything then all your data files will probably be in your My Documents folder in different subfolders.

All you have to do is copy My Documents to your Ext drive then copy it back after the deed is done, but not knowing whether all the progs you use store files there I cant guarantee saving everything. Equally you will have to back up your emails to your Ext drive too then restore them after.

Its not something that can easily be described to a non- techie (no slight intended) I'm afraid

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you could use something like ghost or preinst or qwest (sure i have spelt it wrong) this will copy your whole hard drive when you have a system working well always make a ghost build of it the are lots of bits of software that do the same as ghost

hope this helps

Ade :D

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Could I drag and drop the My Documents / Program files etc etc on to the external hard drive? Will this not copy the stuff that I want?

Its fine for data files (My Documents, videos, pr0n, MP3 etc), but dragging your Program files etc. and then putting them back once you have restored your laptop is 99% likely not going to work - when you install software, files get placed all over the shot (e.g. c:\windows\system32), and entries are made into the "registry". These states are not straight forward to backup and restore...

Hopefully, your recovery CD has all the software you currently use...

Otherwise if you had downloaded any programs and installed them (e.g. MSN Messenger, itunes) or borrowed someones MS Office and installed that, you will have to do the same again after you have restored from your recovery CD(s)...

It is also worth noting that a lot of your "settings" will need to be re-done (e.g. wallpaper, shortcuts, settings saved in MS-Word etc.)

D. :mat:

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d&d My Documents yes no probs that will copy everything in there to your ext drive, Program Files no, wont work. Any progs not installed by the rebuild will have to be separately installed

You have PM

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Copy data files first to make sure you got these backed up, then as long as the external drive is big enough take an imagecopy with Ghost or similar and if it works OK then you can recover the whole machine from that.

If above check disk hard drive, if errors consider scrap it. It it's OK format r-install from recovery and make sure base machime works. If it does copy back from imagecopy and you should be running on gas plus you got the re-assurance you got the data backed up still anyway.

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cant you just travel back in time !!

i mean use the system restore method

keeps all your saved data

but puts all programmes to a date where they worked

thats on windows xp

are you not on a mac ??

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I was also trying to upload some pics from the memory stick in my phone earlier but the computer couldn't read it. The same thing thats happened with my Ipod.. Its now wiped all pics and music off the memory stick..

So could there be some sort of virus or something??

I've also remembered that what started the whole thing off in the first place a few weeks ago is that the computer all of a sudden couldn't recognise the DVD / CD player. I put in a disc and it whirrs for a couple of seconds then just stops.. It says that there is no disc or anything...

So bearing that in mind I can't even put in my recovery disc because the drive is ****** up..

I seem to be up ***** creek without a paddle :lol::crybaby:

Also what's a cyclic redundancy check? I seem to get this error quite alot

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Ad - the CRC is the check that is run on memory stored information - USB stick etc.... if the system detected any errors run through the memory, the error is thrown up.

As far as a virus, it's possible mate, your only 30 mins from me, I can come up, repair any O/S errors in the reg, then back up reg and sys files, this keeps your reg data - database dictorary intact, acronis the system and restore back a point where everything was working correctly

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Try running this to check your registry ( unless you hav Norton System Works ):

http://www.errorexpert.com/

You'll have to download it.

Also sounds like you have lost / corrupt your drivers for the CD not to be working.

Just a thought did it also start happening after you downloaded some fixes from Microsoft for windows? Only my sons' machine has been causing problems for about 2 weeks. He can't access files on CD ( although it reads it ) and seems like his drivers are corrupt on his hard drives ( twin mirrored SATA ).

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Try running this to check your registry ( unless you hav Norton System Works ):

http://www.errorexpert.com/

You'll have to download it.

Also sounds like you have lost / corrupt your drivers for the CD not to be working.

Just a thought did it also start happening after you downloaded some fixes from Microsoft for windows? Only my sons' machine has been causing problems for about 2 weeks. He can't access files on CD ( although it reads it ) and seems like his drivers are corrupt on his hard drives ( twin mirrored SATA ).

Thanks mate. I'll give that a go. It has been a couple of weeks since all this ***** started and yes I have updated from Microsoft around then too.

The scanning is complete 973 errors found.. repaired 24... 949 errors remaining.. Is it worth registering for the rest of the software to sort it?

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