Want to move C and D drive data to external drive device

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bunnasaurus00

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Oct 21, 2017
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I've been hearing a clicking from inside my laptop since yesterday and started getting curious since it wasn't anything I've heard before. I blew out any dust and it persisted, so I cracked open the bottom and found out the noise would have been emanating from my hard drive. When I turned on the laptop again, it told me my hard drive was corrupted and could fail soon, so I should back it up. I obviously want to do that, so I dug up my external hard drive made for the purpose of backing up info. I have it plugged in and have disk management open, but I don't know what to do next. My question is as follows:

How do I move the data from my C and D drives onto my external hard drive backup?

Is this even what I want to do? It's all I can think of, but I am in no way a pro at computers, hence me asking here. Apologies if this question has already been answered 100 times, but this is my first time using this site.
 
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A
I really don't know why you created two partitions in the first place. There may be good & sufficient reasons for doing so. For example you wish to isolate your boot partition (C) from your data partition. But I don't know the disk-space capacity of the drive since you never responded to my question.

I assume you have an anti-virus program installed and perhaps other anti-malware programs as well. I really can't comment on any "attack" on this or that partition.

In any event you should ALWAYS comprehensively backup your boot drive as a matter of routine. That's a given, capiche? And you can use a disk-cloning program to do so,
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aquielisunari

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Mar 31, 2011
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One option is cloning. https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree has step by step directions.
 
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ArtPog

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Sep 17, 2014
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You mention C & D drives. Are these TWO partitions on a single drive or are you referring to TWO different installed drives? Since this is a laptop I'll assume there's only a single drive unless you indicate other.

What are the TOTAL contents of the two partitions?

What is the disk-space capacity of your USB external HDD?
 
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bunnasaurus00

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Oct 21, 2017
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The external USB drive is 2TB, so I can fit all of my info on it easily. The two partitions together is 1TB. I tried to scan and repair the D drive, since i found out it was the one with the problems, and it sat doing nothing for awhile, so i gave up and came back on here to check for any replies. This was an hour or so ago, and now everything from my D drive is uninstalled.

Is this because I cancelled the scan and repair? or is my D drive dead?
 
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A

ArtPog

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Sep 17, 2014
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It certainly looks like the data contents on your D partition are "gone with the wind". I suppose if you want to give it a try you can use one of those data recovery programs that are so prevalent on the net and see if any recovery of data is possible. See https://www.lifewire.com/free-data-recovery-software-tools-2622893 for a listing of freely-available programs. We hardly ever use any of them so I don't have any specific recommendations.

In any event does this latest event negate your desire to comprehensively backup the remaining contents on the boot drive - presumably your C partition? Or is the indication still the same that you have a failing drive?
 
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bunnasaurus00

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Oct 21, 2017
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Well honestly, this just makes me a bit curious. I scanned the C drive and it came up with no problems, but the D drive did have problems.

But surely if there was a problem in the D partition, I could have made another partition containing nothing besides the issue and therefore quarantining it in a sense?

Or can the problem that wiped my D partition also attack my C partition next? My D partition was for programs that i had, but my C partition is for more important things like documents and photos. I'd definitely want to save those, so if there's any chance of them being wiped, I would like help to avoid that.

 
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A

ArtPog

Admirable
Sep 17, 2014
2,951
3
8,965
I really don't know why you created two partitions in the first place. There may be good & sufficient reasons for doing so. For example you wish to isolate your boot partition (C) from your data partition. But I don't know the disk-space capacity of the drive since you never responded to my question.

I assume you have an anti-virus program installed and perhaps other anti-malware programs as well. I really can't comment on any "attack" on this or that partition.

In any event you should ALWAYS comprehensively backup your boot drive as a matter of routine. That's a given, capiche? And you can use a disk-cloning program to do so,
 
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Solution
USAFRet

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Mar 16, 2013
171,328
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184,590


First, you just copy your critical data to the external. Docs, pics, that stuff.
Anything/everything else can be recreated.

If the drive is failing or making new noises, don't put it through the strain of a full clone until you have you critical personal data backed up to a different physical drive.
 
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