Tekforums

Ive made some posts recently about thinking that a hard drive is about to fail and needing backup software.

Turned on my PC this evening to hear "clickclickclickclickclickclick" when the hard drive was accessed. It loaded grub so I can only assume that it is being accessed correctly.

Only problem is...with this clicking (Ive never had to deal with a clicker before) I know that it means that the hard drive is crashing and about to fail.

The situation is worse than I feared after trying to remember how my hard drives are set up. They are setup as Dynamic Disks.

This means Linux cannot access the disks from a live cd (So I cant just access the NTFS partitions and save off my data onto CD-roms). It also means that instead of just backing up the 120gb the drive holds I have to back up close to 300gb of data due to the spanned array of dynamic disks im using.

Now please... no lectures about not using dynamic disks as its past that point, and no guesswork here. I need to hear from you lot whove suffered clicking hard drives in the past. What sort of time do I have till this thing fails?!

Never had to deal with a clicker before, just a noisy one that grinded. and that was a mates... not mine with several gigs of family photos on.

It could die in five minutes or last quite a while. Id run a drive diagnostic tool asap. Maxtor, among others offers free isos for such purposes.

Yes, run diagnostic tools, clicking is not always a hardware problem, data can have a faulty address so the seek tries outside the boundries so to speek..

I have had this and wished Id acted sooner!

My advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup. I found that when I tried to copy it would fail on certain files that it couldent read...would spend a couple of mins (wasting the last few mins of the drive) trying before timing out.

In the end I used the XCOPY with the /C switch, which ignores copy errors...but you could use SyncToy (google it) which does the same. I got about 80% of my stuff off this way...before my drive just stopped making noise and I got the Windows Delayed File Write and that was that :( To this day I wonder if Id have used XCOPY or SyncToy from the start if it would have save enough drive life time to let me get all my data.

If you want to be able to backup your Windows and Program Files (cant see why you would - but if you do) you might find you have to stick another HDD in, install windows on it and run the command from that install.

Quote from: DeltaZeroI have had this and wished Id acted sooner!

My advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup. I found that when I tried to copy it would fail on certain files that it couldent read...would spend a couple of mins (wasting the last few mins of the drive) trying before timing out.

In the end I used the XCOPY with the /C switch, which ignores copy errors...but you could use SyncToy (google it) which does the same. I got about 80% of my stuff off this way...before my drive just stopped making noise and I got the Windows Delayed File Write and that was that :( To this day I wonder if Id have used XCOPY or SyncToy from the start if it would have save enough drive life time to let me get all my data.

If you want to be able to backup your Windows and Program Files (cant see why you would - but if you do) you might find you have to stick another HDD in, install windows on it and run the command from that install.

Agreed, the more you use it, the more likely it is to fail... do as the man says... good luck.

Quote from: DeltaZeroI have had this and wished Id acted sooner!

My advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup. I found that when I tried to copy it would fail on certain files that it couldent read...would spend a couple of mins (wasting the last few mins of the drive) trying before timing out.

In the end I used the XCOPY with the /C switch, which ignores copy errors...but you could use SyncToy (google it) which does the same. I got about 80% of my stuff off this way...before my drive just stopped making noise and I got the Windows Delayed File Write and that was that :( To this day I wonder if Id have used XCOPY or SyncToy from the start if it would have save enough drive life time to let me get all my data.

If you want to be able to backup your Windows and Program Files (cant see why you would - but if you do) you might find you have to stick another HDD in, install windows on it and run the command from that install.

Xcopy is going to have to be the way to do it I think.

I wont run a diagnostic on it for it to tell me "yep... theres something wrong with the drive" as it may damage the drive further. Right now im using my laptop so safe for the moment.

Problem is however that I dont have enough harddrive space or harddrives to back it up.

Xcopy in dos wont burn disks understandably :( But is there any dos tool that does?

Main problem I am worried about is that the Windows install and the linux install are both on this drive. So I have to boot onto the damaged disk in order to recover it, which goes against everything I have ever learnt about when data recovery is the aim.

Already asked a mate if I can take the computer over to him and copy across the network (does xcopy support network transfers??) at least then I will have a bit more hard drive capacity to faff about with. Only thing I dont really like is that well... some of it is personal information, dont really want it on other peoples computers.

No were not talking porn here, but just family pictures, documents pertaining to family stuff, and other gubbins. But I guess its my only choice.

BTW if XCopy supports network transfers I will clear this laptop now (15gb harddrive:() and start transferring everything across.

Quote from: DeltaZeroMy advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup.

:stupid: Having lost a sh*t load of stuff a few months back myself.. :(

If the disk is gonna break then youll have to buy a new one anyway so you might as well get one now while you got the chance to keep your porn.

This could be usefl
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtRecover.html

or this

http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RemoteRecover.html

Quote from: sdp

Quote from: DeltaZeroMy advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup.

:stupid: Having lost a sh*t load of stuff a few months back myself.. :(

If the disk is gonna break then youll have to buy a new one anyway so you might as well get one now while you got the chance to keep your porn.

Except I have no money.

p.s. Porn is overrated :)

Quote from: M3ta7h3adp.s. Porn is overrated :)

or overused in your case  :mutley:

Synctoy is probably your best bet if you have a spare drive

XCOPY does support network transfers...make sure to use network restartable mode (/Z) if youre copying lots of data...just incase you get 98% done and someone trips over the network cable!

Quote from: sdp

Quote from: DeltaZeroMy advice: STOP using your PC *NOW* and backup.

:stupid: Having lost a sh*t load of stuff a few months back myself.. :(

If the disk is gonna break then youll have to buy a new one anyway so you might as well get one now while you got the chance to keep your porn.

Do it. Do it.

Get a new one RIGHT NOW. Go on, click, click, order. Then get backed up.

My drive, the other week - with click of death - decided to corrupt Windows literally 30 mins before I had the new HDD arrive via City Link.

Just dont umm and ahhh, get it backed up.

Im all set to ghost copy my imprtant data now I have it all running from the new drive. Mr clicky is going to be the backup drive until it fails.

Drive in as bag, put it in freezer for 24hrs, then ghost onto new drive.

If you have a floppy drive you can use this Linux distro (http://smartlinux.sourceforge.net/) to obtain detailed diagnostic information.

Smartmontools (http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/) will be available in Ubuntu too, take a look in synaptic. :)

If you dont wanna do a full diag theres a proggy called speedfan thatll read straight off the smart thatl give a rough idea of how duff it is.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Dnld, install, click on the smart tab, select the hdd, and click to do the online thing.

I already had hdtune on the computer. It would fail to read any smart information off of the drive. and crash. Any other hard drive worked fine.

It was one of the warning signs basically.

And so... night of the long copies begins.

Stage one: Copy every single file on my laptop to a computer downstairs.

- Currently underway using XCopy :)

Stage two: Burn a recovery disk that will access ntfs dynamic drives.

- To be done.

Stage three: Boot failing computer with recovery cd. Use laptop via crossover cable to copy across data to laptop.

As laptop fills (15gb space..), copy across to downstairs pc using wireless network.

As Downstairs PC fills... burn CDs full of data.

Also burn DVDs full of data using the failing PC providing I can burn dvds using the recovery cd.

Stage four: Low level format the hard drive.

Reinstall windows and Linux (Putting windows on a bloody small partition :D lol) and start rebuilding everything.

if it starts to die whilst recovering, use the freezer method.

Doh!!!...

Almost backed up all my stuff. Need to know where Evolution stores its emails... as I have a crud load of important emails in there.

Hope I can boot into the thing later.

*/.evolution/mail

Thanks max :)

Yup any folder or filename starting with a dot (in your home folder) is usually hidden, at least in nautilus and konqueror. :)

Quote from: skidzillaYup any folder or filename starting with a dot (in your home folder) is usually hidden, at least in nautilus and konqueror. :)

You just need to cntrl+L to get a location bar then you can type the name of the hidden file while it auto-tab completes.

For serious file management, I prefer the austere Emelfm over the big 2.

Again, Explore2fs can be handy if you need to recover Linux files when running XP.

Ctrl+H displays hidden stuff in your home, but maxs method using the location bar is easier, as you have a LOT more stuff in your home dir than you thought :D pretty much every app you install has a ~/. folder in there..

and thats what is so blimmin great about linux. I did a clean-install of the latest Flight CD from Ubuntu the other day, and when I installed programs like Azureus, etc etc - no need to configure, its not like a clean install.. they just grabbed their files from the home dir and looked exactly like I had left them in the other O/S.

 8)

Aye I know about the . files in home :) just was unsure, as some things are saved in places like /var/usr/lib/ or some random places :D.

Im struggling to cram stuff onto DVDs.

See its times like these that I need a program that will find the most efficient way of filling dvds with stuff!! :) Dont care what order they are in, just want to get the data safe!