Replacing the hard drive of my PC...

[Chad_A]

...while retaining the information stored. Is there a way to transfer all my files over to a new HD?

 

Note: the current hard drive is still functioning, just slowly. The PC is only 1.5 years old; just out of warranty of course. Dell stopped out and replaced both the motherboard and the RAM, and it didn't fix anything. Antispyware didn't seem to find anything, and it's always way too slow for a 512mb/2.8Ghz machine. The HD always seems to be running for no reason, sound gets interuppted very easily when it's taxed with a couple of tasks (even with the addition of a better sound card), and the Task Manager never says that anything really big is going on.

 

Anyway, according to everyone I've asked it's the last thing to replace. If anyone has any other thoughts, I'm all ears. I just want to be able to shift all my files over without losing it all.

[bluebadger]

Scandisk it. (In accessories/system tools folder). If it's got physical damage, it should pick it up. You may just need to reinstall Windows, to clean out the old .dlls

[Chad_A]

It's an XP machine; I looked for Scandisk (I know all my older machines had it) but this one didn't seem to, no matter where I looked.

 

I went to the "Help and Support Center" and "Chkdsk" is what came up. It didn't describe it very well, but was vaguely described as something that you run under the C: prompt.

 

So, I did that, and it ran, but didn't mention what it found, or seem to fix anything. Certainly doesn't run any different.

 

Next suggestion?

[bluebadger]

Open my computer, right click the hard drive, choose properties, click the tools button then click the check now button.

 

It'll take a while to run, but cheaper than putting in a new HD if you don't need it.

[Chad_A]

Ok, I'll go check that out...

[rob]

One common method is to set up your new drive as a slave and format/partition it. Copy your files to a partition on this new disk, and then switch it to master, reboot on the new disk and reinstall windows and your apps. Imaging software comes in real handy in these circumstances.

 

But what makes you think you need a new harddrive? Did you replace the board and memory with faster hardware, or just new versions of the same thing? I would recommend running a scandisk/defrag on the existing drive first.

 

You should also pop some more memory into the board. I would have done this first. You should aim for a gig. You're running XP, right?

[foraker]

I run XP with only 512Mb/1.5Ghz without any trouble. I did have recent problems with an upgrade to old anti-virus software. It was continuously running some process in the background and made doing anything, especially internet access, run noticeably slower, sometimes annoyingly so. You also might try a couple of different anti-spyware programs. None is so good that they catch everything.

[Chad_A]

I run XP with only 512Mb/1.5Ghz without any trouble. I did have recent problems with an upgrade to old anti-virus software. It was continuously running some process in the background and made doing anything, especially internet access, run noticeably slower, sometimes annoyingly so. You also might try a couple of different anti-spyware programs. None is so good that they catch everything.

 

Sounds exactly what's going on with mine. I've tried the Checkdisk and defrag per people's mentions, and neither changed anything a bit. The drive always seems to be running; something's going on in the background, but the task manager says that there really isn't.

 

Specifically, what program did you dump, and what program did you end up with? I have McAfee (the usual) and as double checks, I run Spybot S&D and Adaware. They occasionally find low risk stuff, but nothing really to speak of.

[foraker]

I was running PC-cillin for a couple of years and it did a fine job until I upgraded to the 2007 version. That's when things went bad. I changed over to Zone Alarm the other day and things are back to normal.

[Stonehead]

In the event that you don't have a run-of-the-mill problem then perhaps try RootkitRevealer (http://www.sysinternals.com/utilities/rootkitrevealer.html and F-Secure Blacklight (http://www.f-secure.com/blacklight/. Also, maybe a network intrusion prevention and detection system such as Snort http://www.snort.org/ or Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/faq.html#q1.1.

 

Maybe this is too advanced and/or overkill. I don't have the expertise to help you out here with these tools but someone else may have further advice.

 

Actually, forget all that and try this: http://safety.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm.

[Tony_Bentley]

Get a new drive with more storage and set it as master then reinstall all of the program files. I have a sweet little external adaptor that takes any internal drive and gives it AC power and USB-2 connection. Set it as a slave drive and then go into the Documents and Settings and pull whatever it is that you want and put it on your new local drive. The drive can then be reformatted and used as a backup if it is working properly after the complete reformat.

[foraker]

Of course, a certain friend of mine would suggest just transfering your documents to another drive, reformatting the drive with Linux, and then dumping your docs back on. Voila. No more WinXP problems. ;-)

[Chad_A]

Get a new drive with more storage and set it as master then reinstall all of the program files. I have a sweet little external adaptor that takes any internal drive and gives it AC power and USB-2 connection. Set it as a slave drive and then go into the Documents and Settings and pull whatever it is that you want and put it on your new local drive. The drive can then be reformatted and used as a backup if it is working properly after the complete reformat.

 

I tried the Blacklight- said it's clean. No "rootkits" found.

 

I should add that this machine has never been lightening quick. I noticed rather early that the sound would break up if I asked the machine to do anything substantial when playing music, etc, but chalked it up to the motherboard having to run the sound (it was an option to subtract the expensive sound card and just have the motherboard run the sound). It didn't take me long to get a sound card, and it never did change the issue. I still can't play the avi. files that I take with my dig camera without it playing very roughly. It's painful to watch them.

 

I also understand that 512 mb isn't too much these days, but hell, I don't have that much running. The Dell service guy even changed some of the settings, and made a whole bunch of programs low priority, in attempt to help the thing out. His thought at the time was, "the only thing left to think about replacing is the hard drive."

 

Thanks much for all the input, and I'd consider Linux...if I knew anything about PCs. As it is, I'm going to have to call up a pal to set up the HD transfer so I don't screw anything up

[kurthicks]

just burn everything to DVD, add 512 ram or more (just make sure that all the sticks of ram are of the same size), and reformat the original drive. if that doesn't fix it then buy a new drive. The ram is likely a culprit if the processor is 2.8ghz IMO. what is the speed of the hard drive? 5400? 7200?

[archenemy]

One common method is to set up your new drive as a slave and format/partition it. Copy your files to a partition on this new disk, and then switch it to master, reboot on the new disk and reinstall windows and your apps. Imaging software comes in real handy in these circumstances.

This is what I did for my new drive, but I still have issues with that computer. But I agree that it is the easiest way to move crap over.

[Chad_A]

just burn everything to DVD, add 512 ram or more (just make sure that all the sticks of ram are of the same size), and reformat the original drive. if that doesn't fix it then buy a new drive. The ram is likely a culprit if the processor is 2.8ghz IMO. what is the speed of the hard drive? 5400? 7200?

 

Problem #1- I don't have a DVD burner, just a CD burner (probably doesn't hold as much information? I could see having to make way too many CDs for this to be a viable option, unfortunately).

 

Problem #2- My g/f has a laptop Toshiba that is faster than my PC, and has a slower processor. I have no idea what the speed of my HD is, but it's an 80 GB.

[olyclimber]

80 GB??? Pssssshhshshshstttt!!!! Is it a 386 SX? Or an Apple ][e?

[ClimbingPanther]

Yeah, the master/slave thing is definitely the way to go. It will work; you'll not lose all your data.

 

However, if I were you, since you're going to be wiping the whole thing anyway, I'd suggest somehow saving important files to someone else's HD (keep your new one in the box) first, wiping your old HD clean (not just a system restore or something), and installing XP fresh on it, sequentially installing programs/hardware one at a time to discover if/when it dramatically slows down. I REALLY doubt there's any problem with your HD. Maybe after every 5 programs/hardware, create a system restore point so you don't have to waste time reinstalling everything if uninstalling the problematic program/hardware doesn't help.

[Gary_Yngve]

One possibility is that you don't have enough RAM, and the HD being used for swapping. If you press ctrl-alt-delete and look at your performance, you can see how much memory is being used. Also take a look at what applications and processes are running. Also see how cluttered your system tray is.

 

But there could be lots of other things going on. Do you continually leave your computer on or power it down daily? Windows often tries to be clever and cache DLLs, do automatic indexing, etc., that could be wasting time. Some of these happen at each bootup.

 

There's also the notion that your computer could be stale, with a bunch of old DLLs clogging things up.

 

Buying a new harddrive alone will not fix the problem. What may work is reinstalling everything from scratch and restoring your data from your other harddrive (but you may lose things like preferences, bookmarks, etc.).

[bstach]

I agree w Gary...Sounds like you just need more memory...your hard drive is working overtime because your system is swapping data in and out of virtual memory. Go upgrade to 1MB ...its a cheap and quick fix. Even if this isn't the problem, its $50 well spent.

 

I had problems with my HP printer slowing my system down...it installs all sorts of extra shit that you don't need. I'd suggest using Task Manager to look at stuff the gets automatically started when you boot up...if there is stuff you do not need to start at boot, configure it to not.

[Chuck_Norris]

I agree with Gayree, punch those muthafuckin DLLs! Who needs them anyway. Besides, I've been taking these supplements that make my abs look rad! So stay cool, and start deleting. More is less with the new wave of computing.

[Chuck_Norris]

And if you find a way to upgrade by just 1MB, call me. My people can talk to your people, and I can open doors for you.

[Dechristo]

...I can open doors for you.

 

Yeah, we know you, ButtChuckie; always offering to open "your {back}door" for comely lookin' young guys.

 

Watch 'im, Gary. Next he'll be asking you to increase the "Ram in his cumpooter".

[Alex]

Running Backlight and RootkitRevealer are very good ideas (but they detect maybe only a quarter of the known rootkit variants), I would add AdAware and maybe Spybot Search and Destroy to that list.. in fact there are a number of great tools out there and none of them catches all the issues (so running 2+ gives you some paralax), but in general rootkits and adware don't thrash the machine in the way you are describing unless you're already pwned and part of an active botnetwork.

 

Adding more RAM and/or a new HDD are all good, OR you could just go add an external USB drive (a 250GB USB 2.0 drive costs around 150$), back up all your video/pics (but NO binaries!) onto the external drive, then wipe and rebuild the machine.

 

Either way, rebuilding your machine is the only option if you suspect malware. If you don't suspect malware (due to your surfing habits or because you've run every tool on the planet) then the external drive is a great start.

[olyclimber]

I had that problem once and I fixed it by replacing the harddrive, videocard, cpu, muthaboard, ram, case, powersupply, and operating system.