Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB Failing!

[f12ostii]

I need some proper guidance on creating a system image..had my pc for a entire year and reap the benefit of not performing regular backups..now my HDD is making clicking noises out of the blue...what do I need to do?? I am purchasing a new external hard drive from newegg right now...

Step by step what should I do...
should i connect my external HDD as soon I get it and power up my system then immediately go to create a system image..(is their anything I need to do before I create a image?) also I only used 250gb of the 1TB so far how long will this take to create a image off...roughly a est time would be nice. Should of created backups regularly..I need help on this matter. Whats the safest way to do this..

 

[f12ostii]

Is it as simple as plugging in the external HDD and performing system image...or do I need to configure the HDD or anything before I attempt to this backup...

wow this really sucks..if my HDD does fail is there anyway to recover the data...by any means?? like data recovery from WD site...(sigh) I have my entire windows and desktop set up how I want it now I might have to start from scratch...OMG all my steam games that took forever to DL ..I have to live through that again...

plz let me create a system image successfully.
I have Windows 7 home premium and they have its own system image program..

cant believe out of the low chances to be hit by HDD failure..It happens to me.

 

[f12ostii]

Do I have to format the disk first to create a system image? Hope its as simple as plug in and create backup..

 

[f12ostii]

Someone suggested that I do this and wonder if this will help...unplug my clicking noise HDD.plug in external HDD and make it as the primary boot device.power the system up and install windows and then plug back the clicking HDD as storage...will this be less stress on the clicking HDD than after that i simply create a system image on the external HDD..Will this help?? Since its clicking i want to put the least amount of usage on the failing HDD.

 

[fzabkar]

You need to understand the difference between imaging and cloning.

Imaging a drive results in an identical byte-for-byte copy. Therefore whatever exists on the target drive will be overwritten. This means that the destination drive does not need to be partitioned or formatted.

Cloning can also mean imaging, but it can also refer to making a copy of your file system. In this case your cloning software may decide to use an existing volume on the target, or it may creat one of its own. The target volume may be a different size than the original.

Imaging a drive will copy every sector, whether or not it contains data. Cloning will only copy the occupied sectors.

If your file system is damaged, then your best approach is to image the drive and then use data recovery software on the target. Some freeware cloning (imaging) tools are ...

dd_rescue: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
ddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Comparison between ddrescue and dd_rescue:
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Ddrescue

Ddrescue can perform multipass cloning. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass, and attempts the more difficult ones on subsequent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, thereby disabling lookahead caching. It keeps a log, allowing it to resume after an interruption.

The following thread discusses various freeware and commercial cloning tools:
http://forum.hddguru.com/the-best-disk-cloning-hardware-software-t10396.html

If the drive is reasonably healthy, then you could use Acronis True Image.

Seagate has a free downloadable OEM version of Acronis True Image:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
http://www.seagate.com/support/discwizard/dw_ug.en.pdf (User Guide)

Western Digital also has a free OEM version of Acronis True Image:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/AcronisTrueImageWDEditionUM.pdf (User Manual)

 

[f12ostii]

You need to understand the difference between imaging and cloning.

Imaging a drive results in an identical byte-for-byte copy. Therefore whatever exists on the target drive will be overwritten. This means that the destination drive does not need to be partitioned or formatted.

Cloning can also mean imaging, but it can also refer to making a copy of your file system. In this case your cloning software may decide to use an existing volume on the target, or it may creat one of its own. The target volume may be a different size than the original.

Imaging a drive will copy every sector, whether or not it contains data. Cloning will only copy the occupied sectors.

If your file system is damaged, then your best approach is to image the drive and then use data recovery software on the target. Some freeware cloning (imaging) tools are ...

dd_rescue: http://www.garloff.de/kurt/linux/ddrescue/
ddrescue: http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

Comparison between ddrescue and dd_rescue:
http://www.forensicswiki.org/wiki/Ddrescue

Ddrescue can perform multipass cloning. It clones the easy sectors on the first pass, and attempts the more difficult ones on subsequent passes. It can also clone your drive in reverse, thereby disabling lookahead caching. It keeps a log, allowing it to resume after an interruption.

The following thread discusses various freeware and commercial cloning tools:
http://forum.hddguru.com/the-best-disk-cloning-hardware-software-t10396.html

If the drive is reasonably healthy, then you could use Acronis True Image.

Seagate has a free downloadable OEM version of Acronis True Image:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
http://www.seagate.com/support/discwizard/dw_ug.en.pdf (User Guide)

Western Digital also has a free OEM version of Acronis True Image:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119
http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/UM/ENG/AcronisTrueImageWDEditionUM.pdf (User Manual)[/quotems

so I should just plug in my external drive without formatting it...then run a system image?? simple as that?

 

[fzabkar]

Yes, it's as simple as that. However, if your external drive connects to a USB port, then the transfer rate will be limited to around 20MB/s. At this rate a 1TB image will require about 14 hours.

An internal drive, OTOH, will have an average transfer rate of around 100MB/s.

USB 3.0 transfer rates should be within 10% of the internal transfer rate, if you can find suitable hardware.

 

[f12ostii]

Yes, it's as simple as that. However, if your external drive connects to a USB port, then the transfer rate will be limited to around 20MB/s. At this rate a 1TB image will require about 14 hours.

An internal drive, OTOH, will have an average transfer rate of around 100MB/s.

USB 3.0 transfer rates should be within 10% of the internal transfer rate, if you can find suitable hardware.

I bought a external with esata and finished the system image in 45mins...thank god I was worried that I would lose all my data.
thanks fzabkar Dont understand why drive fail so commonly now..need to buy more for backups...

 

[f12ostii]

Best answer selected by F12osTii.