I’m having some disk issues and I would really appreciate your help. I’ll try to be as precise as possible, however, if any additional information is needed, please let me know and I´ll fetch it asap!
My setup:
Me: I’m familiar with computers, but I’m certainly no expert. With this in mind, it would be fair to say that I would be able to follow somewhat complex instructions (if needed), but I would require a very detailed guide. Please bear with me!
My computer: Here’s a summary of all the main components of my Windows 7 PC:
- Operating System
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit SP1
- CPU
- Intel Core i7 4790 @ 3.60 GHz
- Haswell 22nm Technology
- RAM
- 16.0 GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 933 MHz (10-11-10-30)
- Motherboard
- Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. Z97X-SLI-CF (SOCKET 0)
- Graphics
- PnP-Monitor (Standard) (1920×1080@60 Hz)
- Intel Standard VGA Graphics Adapter (Gigabyte)
- 4095 MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 (Undefined)
- Storage
- 931 GB Western Digital WDC WD10EZEX-22BN5A0 SCSI Disk Device (SATA)
- 223 GB KINGSTON SH103S3240G SCSI Disk Device (SSD)
The situation:
About a month ago, my SSD started displaying warning messages indicating impending failure:
Windows detected a hard disk problem
Back up your files immediately to prevent information loss, and then
contact the computer manufacturer to determine if you need to repair
or replace the disk.
Which disk is failing? The following hard disks are reporting failure:
Disk Name: KINGSTON SH103S3240G SCSI Disk Device
Volume: C:\
image: Message of impending doom #1
I’ve backed up the SSD in my HDD (which is working normally) but, according to the limited research I made on the subject, the disk failure appears imminent:
Replace or repair the hard disk
After backup is complete, please shut down the computer and repair or
replace the faulty disk.
and I’d rather deal with this issue before my SSD dies.
image: Message of impending doom #2
The solution:
Given that I can’t afford a new disk at the moment, I would like to move both Windows and the boot partition from my dying SSD to my healthy HDD. I want to do this in such a manner that all my system runs from the HDD, but that I may still use the SSD for storage until it dies.
The caveat, however, is that all my important data is on my HDD, so I CAN’T format or delete all its contents.
In short, what I want to do is move both Windows and the boot
partition from my SSD to my HDD without deleting the HDD’s contents.
Is this even possible? And if so, what would be the easiest way for me to do it?
Additional question – what would happen if I actually let my SSD die? Will I be able to completely restore my system (including Windows and all my programs) solely from the backup I made on the HDD?
I would be forever indebted to whoever takes some time to help me with this issue. I’ve read countless threads about how to move the system to new drives, but nobody seems to outline a method to move it into an already used drive (or I’m too dull to understand if someone did).
Answer
All you need is a program called Clonezilla.
You won't have to worry about MBR GPT mumbo jumbo. It takes care of all that for you!
If you carefully follow the instructions then it will copy everything you need. I can verify that it does work for migrating between HDD and SSD. It cleans up the MBR and GPT to what it needs to be if it detects something is wrong. It has not failed for me once no matter what crazy scenario I've thrown at it. And it even has a feature supposedly for recovering failing drives that is supposed to work better where other software is failed.
It works faster and more reliably than the Windows backup.
Follow the guide here exactly.
http://clonezilla.org/show-live-doc-content.php?topic=clonezilla-live/doc/03_Disk_to_disk_clone
Clonezilla is free and open source!
Here's another tip. If you chose device to image instead of device to device then you can use that saved image to recover it to another drive if both the HDD and SSD fail. Clonezilla is also very effective at compressing the disk it is backing up.
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