Derek891

Hello Brad - You're doing good so far, it's better to take your time than rush through this. We're getting to the point where it's time to prioritize things, so we'll deal with the most important things first. Being able to boot from either the Toshiba external drive or the USB stick is vital to the whole plan. When you go into the BIOS settings, look for a page or a section for "Boot Options" or "Boot Configuration". In that section, you should see a way to access "Boot Order", or a subsection listed on the page itself. It should look similar to this: Boot Order: Hard Drive Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive USB Diskette on Key/USB Hard Disk USB CD/DVD ROM Drive Network Device At the top or bottom of the page, there should be a bar explaining what the "F" or function keys are used for. Whenever I use the word USUALLY in this example, be aware that I'm talking about the Function Keys used in my BIOS, not in yours. Yours could be different. Read and understand what your function keys are used for, do not take my word for it. All you want to do here is change the boot order, nothing else. USUALLY the F5 and F6 keys move an item up or down in the boot order, you may have to select or highlight the item first, using the page up/page down keys . When you get that item to the top, USUALLY F10 is used to save the settings and to exit BIOS. You may have to try using USB Hard Disk for the Toshiba and USB CD/DVD ROM for the USB stick, it will depend how your BIOS "sees" the hardware. Try different combinations, you may find that one setting will work for both. I can't really offer more in the way of advice on this, you'll have to experiment and be careful with what you're doing. USUALLY the F9 key will reset everything to the default settings if you think you messed things up. Next, Ken W's idea of using the CHKDSK /R command is good, it could recover any data in the bad sectors. Be aware that it will take a long time to run, it's up to you if you want to use it. The reason it didn't work for you is you have to right click the command prompt and select "Run as Administrator" to use CHKDSK. Use all capitals, and enter "CHKDSK C: /R" (without the quotes) for the C: partition and "CHKDSK D: /R" for D: partition. Also note there's a space between the colon and / mark. You did the right thing saving all your files from D: to your own Toshiba, it's almost enough to fill the entire drive. If you shrink C: partition down a little more, so that it's 280GB (286720MB), you'll be able to save both the recovery partition and C: partition to your dad's Toshiba, and have a little room to spare. Did you get a chance to read the link I posted and watch the video? If you can drag and drop files, it's basically the same. Click on the recovery partition first, select "Clone this Disk", then move the recovery partition to the target drive, keeping it at the front of the drive. Then move the C: partition. Hit "Next" on the bottom of the page, read the summary on the next page to see if it looks right, then hit "Finish". Remember, you can do this over if you have to. Go back to my previous post to read how to boot the Toshiba. You can use it until you get a new drive. When you get your new drive, clone these two partitions from the Toshiba onto it, extend C: drive to where you think it's right, create and format a new D: partition (use NTFS), then copy the files to D: from the other Toshiba, and you're back in business. And last, plan B, the safety net. By downloading the ISO file, and using Rufus to create a bootable USB stick, you will have a way to do a fresh install of Windows 7 to your new hard drive, just in case something goes wrong with plan A. It's the same as having the installation DVD, I chose this because you mentioned you weren't too thrilled about buying Windows 7 again. As long as you have a valid activation key, you'll be fine. Keep in mind, you only want to test this to be sure it will boot. DO NOT select to start the installation, or it will start to overwrite either the hard drive or the Toshiba. Kill it on the first screen by clicking the red x in the top right corner, the same way you would close a program. To be absolutely safe, make sure to do the clone to the Toshiba first, and make sure it boots, then be sure to disconnect it, before you try testing the USB stick. All right Brad, I think you have everything you need to do this. If you're unsure about something, or if you run into problems, post back, we'll take it from there.

I personally like to have the menu bar available when the browser is running, so I can access volume and equalizer settings easily. I have I.E.10, Pale Moon(x64) , and the Tor browser installed on my Windows machine, and Firefox on the Linux machine.

Dennis - I apologize to you and the other members of the forum. I've edited my post and changed the link to Filehippo's website. The only thing I can say in my defense is that when you go to the Paramount Software website looking for a direct link to download the free version, you are redirected to the CNET site. I was wrong to assume that Paramount would put their faith in CNET to do the right thing.

Hello Warlock I'm glad to hear that your ordeal with defragmenting is over. Also glad the big hammer did not come into play during the process. From what you've described, you already have the hardware necessary to do a backup. One of the 1GB USB sticks and the 30GB Smartdisk Firelight will be all you need. If you're assuming that you need a 75GB device to match the capacity of your hard drive, you do not. As a matter of fact, if you use Macrium Reflect to create a backup image, your 29GB of data will be compressed by about 50 percent in the process. Using Macrium is easy once you get the hang of it. The link to the download is here: http://www.filehippo.com/download_macrium_reflect/ Once you have the installer, run it to install Macrium. Then you will use Macrium to create two things: a bootable USB stick that is used to run the WinPE rescue program, and an image of your system partitions on the Smartdisk Firelight. Here are the instructions for creating WinPE on the USB stick: http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50165.aspx (Nice picture here ) And here are the instructions to create the system image: http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50074.aspx (Even more nice pictures ) (Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, make some popcorn, and watch the video ) When this is done, you can use the USB stick to boot and run the WinPE rescue program, then that is used access the Smartdisk and reinstall your system partitions: http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50079.aspx Note: Read the second set of instructions, it applies to restoring system images, not data images. Edit: Did not realize mta already posted; my typing skills lie somewhere between dead slow and reverse. Edit: Better idea, first backup your personal files to the 16GB USB stick, then use Macrium as I've described above. Now your personal data will exist in three places: the current hard drive, the USB stick, and the image on the Smartdisk Firelight. And your operating system can be restored to a new hard drive if necessary.

That's an excellent idea Ken, better late than never. Welcome to the party. The only thing worse than knowing your hard drive is on the way out is to try to boot and get the message "No operating system present", at that point it's too late to do much about it.

Brad - Before going any further, it would be a good idea if you posted the partition information that was displayed by Macrium. First, whether the internal drive is a MBR or GPT partitioned disk and the overall size; this is displayed at the top of the window. Next, how many partitions there are on the disk, including C: and D:, their names, the order they are in, the size of each one, the amount of data on each one and the type of format used. Here's an example of what I want to see: GPT Disk 1 Hitachi 931.51 GB 1.) WinRE 400MB-255MB used NTFS 2.) System EFI 260MB-114MB used FAT32 3.) MSR 128MB-0MB used - (no format) 4.) System C: 903GB-44.5GB used NTFS 5.) Recovery D: 28GB-24.8GB used NTFS In this example, Macrium flags #2, #3, and #4 as system partitions that must be cloned; the others would be left up to the user I understand you already have D: backed up to your Toshiba, but please include it with this information. Depending on how much data there is stored on it, and how much data is on the other partitions, we will decide whether to include or exclude it when using Macrium to do the clone. I understand you formatted the other Toshiba to NTFS and ended up with 297GB usable space, this is normal due to the partition table created in the formatting process, and 4096 bytes is default size for clusters in the NTFS filesystem. Macrium will reformat the target disk anyway, but it's good to know there's 297GB to work with. I understand you shrank C: to 297GB to match the Toshiba, but since I'm unaware of the size of all the other partitions, you may have to go a bit further. I realize there's a 8.1GB recovery partition involved as well, and it is a good idea to save it, but don't do anything until we have the info for all the other partitions involved. Also, I think it's better to shrink a partition using the Windows Partition Manager rather than using the option to change partition size with Macrium. In order to save the time and effort involved for me to explain how to use Macrium, I'm posting a link to their support site: http://kb.macrium.com/KnowledgebaseArticle50081.aspx Read everything, then watch the video at the bottom of the page. If you have any doubts, keep in mind that you can keep re-doing everything on the first page over and over until you think it's right, because the cloning process does not begin unless you go to the second page and click the button to start. Also, if you perform the clone and think you got it wrong, you can repeat the entire process. When you are done, and you want to test the Toshiba to see if it boots, shut down, leave the Toshiba connected, go into the case and remove the cable to the internal drive. When you re-boot, hit the key to enter BIOS settings, change the boot order to put the USB drive first, then exit BIOS and let it boot. If it works, just leave the internal drive in place and disconnected, it's probably the safest place to keep it. If it fails, shut down, re-connect the internal drive, and remember to enter BIOS and make that the first device. As far as plan B, I'm giving you two links here. The first is for Rufus, a utility that is used to create a bootable USB stick. http://rufus.akeo.ie/ It's not too difficult to use, and like Macrium, if you get it wrong, just re-run it. The second is to a link to download the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit ISO image. Digital River is authorized by Microsoft to make these images available.http://www.w7forums.com/threads/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads.12325/ I think the one you want is the second from the top, please verify this for yourself in case I am wrong. By using Rufus to make this image bootable, you will be able to install Windows from scratch if you have to. Test it first, but do NOT begin the installation process. You only want to see if it boots. Click the red x to close the program and shut down the machine. If you have a valid activation key, you can activate it during installation, or you have 30 days if you want to do it afterward. Remember, this is a fallback plan, it will save you a lot of time and effort to use Macrium and save what you already have. One unanswered question: Can you boot your machine from USB by changing the BIOS settings? You have to know this for sure, otherwise booting from the Toshiba or the USB stick will not work. This is very important, you need to know for sure before going any further. Please post back with the partition info I requested, or if there's a problem using Macrium. Talk to you soon.

Imacri - I would like to thank you for all the work you have put into this. I recently bought a Lenovo T400 Thinkpad that had Vista Business installed. I used Vista for several days visiting Lenovo's support website in order to find the BIOS and firmware updates available for this machine. Then I installed openSUSE 13.1 and noticed that the almost constant disk activity that was going on when Vista was installed had vanished. I was always curious as to why Vista was doing this, and now I know. Thank you again for your effort.

Too much Kaffeine is bad for you anyway.

Thanks Winapp2 - I recently installed openSUSE 13.1 on my Lenovo laptop and am still sorting through all the applications. I have found that the default media player, Kaffeine, is really lacking in terms of codec support. It seems everytime I try to do something with it, I'm going back to the repository and searching for another codec. I think it's time to dump Kaffeine and install SMPlayer. Thanks again.

Brad - Glad to hear you have your data from D: already backed up on your Toshiba, also glad to hear you have a second Toshiba to work with. One thing I'd like to know first - can your machine boot from an external USB drive? I realize you probably never tried it since you've never had the need to do so. It will involve going into BIOS and changing the boot order. Are you O.K. with doing that? Don't do it yet, just find out how to do it, you still need to boot from the internal drive for now. I agree with you about the Windows backup/restore options - I don't like them either. What I'm thinking of is using Macrium Reflect to clone your system partitions to your dad's Toshiba, then you'll still be able to use your machine until you get the chance to buy a new internal drive. Then it would be a matter of cloning them from the Toshiba back to the new hard drive after your install it. That's the overall plan, there's some things to do first. Go here to download Macrium Reflect: http://www.filehippo.com/download_macrium_reflect/ Edit: Changed the link from CNET to Filehippo at the request of the moderators Actually, you'll be downloading a utility that will download the Macrium installer, so it's a two step process. After you've got it, run the installer. Then run Macrium, because I believe it will notify you that an update is available the first time you run it. Apply the update. Take a good look at Macrium while you have it running, it will show you all the partitions on your drive. Take careful note of the names, the order they're in, the size, how each one is formatted. Also note, the ones with a Windows symbol are the system partitions that must be cloned - the rest are optional. Don't do anything else for now. I'm going to run through the procedure here on my machine first, because up until now, I've only used the imaging portion of Macrium. Cloning seems simple enough, but I want to be absolutely sure about how to do it before I tell you how. Post back when you're ready or if you have a problem. You said you have a valid activation key for Windows 7, correct? Five groups of five characters each? If you have a 4GB (or larger) USB stick that is blank, post back yes/no for the USB stick, then tell me exactly which version of Windows 7 it is (Home, Premium, Ultimate) and whether 32 or 64 bit. I want to have a plan B available for you in case plan A goes wrong. Talk to you soon. Edit: I sent you a PM earlier, got no reply yet. Go to the very top of the page and click the envelope symbol. Edit: Took a good look at the cloning portion of Macrium, pretty straightforward. Shows you the source drive, all the partitions on it, and the target drive. It re-partitions and formats the target drive, so I hope there is nothing on your Dad's drive he wants to keep. Would be wise to check first. If so, is it possible to save his files on your Toshiba? Then we need to decide if there are any partitions you want to keep that are over and above the basic system partitions, for instance the WINRE or Recovery partitions, as long as there's room for them.

Brad - Don't get too upset with yourself, we all make mistakes. And don't get into a panic. S.M.A.R.T. analysis is used to predict drive failure, it does not mean it will fail today, tomorrow, next week, or even next month. I've heard stories of drives lasting for 2-3 years after failure is predicted by S.M.A.R.T. A report involving reallocated sectors means that there are some sectors on the drive that are unusable and the data on them has been remapped to other sectors. Believe it or not, even brand new drives can have bad sectors, and manufacturers box and ship them because the number of bad sectors is below a certain tolerance level. If that is the only problem reported by S.M.A.R.T, it is something to be concerned about but nothing that should cause you to panic. Use Acronis to monitor the value and check to see if it increases over time. You have time to plan what to do. We need a clearer picture of the situation. Either Windows sees your internal drive as C: drive and the external Toshiba drive as D: drive? Or both C: and D: partitions are on the internal drive? Need to know for sure. Please give us a clue as to how many GB of data you have on each partition. Depending on that to form a plan. If things add up properly, it could be possible to transfer the data from the external drive to the internal drive temporarily, repartition and reformat the external drive to NTFS, and save everything to the 320 GB Toshiba, including Windows. But we need the partition layout and the numbers first. Edit: You mentioned a Windows backup on D: drive? If you didn't do it yourself, is there some setting you have enabled in Windows to do a scheduled backup?

Hello 6031769 - It's good to see that you share everyone else's enthusiasm for Piriform products. I'm sure that if Piriform decided to come out with a Linux version of CCleaner, it would be awesome. Until that happens, you might want to try using Bleachbit. It is available from Sourceforge, be sure to download the package that is correct for your Linux distribution. The link is here: http://bleachbit.sourceforge.net/download/Linux I have openSUSE 13.1 installed on my Lenovo Thinkpad T400, and Bleachbit works pretty well. Be careful with one thing. If you select the "Free Disk Space" option in the "System" section, do not try to cancel it. Be patient and let it run to completion. If you cancel it, you will find it has filled your drive and you have no freespace left. If this happens, you have to go to the Home folder and look for a folder with a nonsensical name like "EcJ5jDh7r3", then use Shift+Delete to get rid of it. "Been there, done that" if you get my meaning.

I came up with a good analogy to this. It would be like buying a car, but the dealer insisting that you keep it garaged at the dealership instead of your own home. Then on Christmas day, when you were planning to visit your relatives, you go to the dealership and find they are closed, and your car is locked in their garage. This is why I resist to follow the trend of keeping things in the cloud. There may come a time when you really need something and find you cannot access it.

Hello Brad - Did you try Acronis first? What were the results? I would try to eliminate the drives as the source of the problem first, then start looking in other areas. The message concerning BIOS, I wish you were more specific as to what it said. Did it occur during a normal Windows boot or did you get it when you pressed a function key and accessed the BIOS area? Before you do anything as far as flashing a new BIOS, it is VERY important to visit the Asus support website and find out what is the latest BIOS version for your machine, then compare that to the version that is installed on your machine. If it's a match, you don't need to do anything as far as flashing the BIOS. If it's not a match, you want to find out exactly how to go about it, because you do NOT want to get it wrong.

Just to be clear: You do not have one drive with two partitions, C: and D:, what you have are two independent drives, one with C: and the other with D:, correct? I agree. The odds of two separate drives failing at the same time is less than getting hit by lightning and the same or less than winning the Powerball lottery. Perhaps the controller on the motherboard has a problem, and Windows is interpreting that as both drives failing at once. Or maybe Windows is throwing up a false flag when there is no problem at all. If your machine has some kind of hardware test utility installed, accessible through the boot menu or BIOS area, you might want to try using it. Lacking that, I would install a separate software utility to analyze the S.M.A.R.T. data from the drives, in order to get a second opinion that is independent of what Windows is telling you. You can use either the software that is available from the drive manufacturer's website, or you could try Acronis Drive Monitor. The link is here: http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/drive-monitor/ It is freeware and works with Windows 7. Edit: A link to Wikipedia, scroll down the page to find the chart explaining the ID numbers that are used by S.M.A.R.T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T

Wiping a 1TB drive is going to take a very long time. Here's something for you to consider: Just how many gigabytes of data do you have on that 1TB partition? Does it really have to be that big? I currently have around 50GB of data on a 200GB partition for C: drive. More than enough room, and if I need more, I can extend the partition. If you decide to shrink your C: partition, keep one thing in mind: you should go into your system recovery settings and allocate a larger percentage in order to maintain the same amount of disk space for your system restore points. (2% of 1000GB=20GB and 10% of 200GB=20GB, understand?)

Hello login 123 - here is the link I was referring to in my first post: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Recovery/Upgrading-to-Windows-8-1/td-p/3025061 This person David PK seems pretty knowledgeable, I have read some of his other replies on the topic of recovery and he seems to know what he is talking about. However, I have visited other forums (non-HP) where people claim there is a process to update the recovery partition after doing the 8.1 update via the store. The thing is, I do not know what their starting point was, whether they did their original install using Microsoft's media, or if they are talking about a factory pre-installed version of Windows 8. I wish I knew for sure. What I'm trying to do is get a good look down the rabbit hole before I jump in, not after. Here's a link to Microsoft's website, read the note all the way at the bottom of the page: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-usb-recovery-drive It appears to agree with HP's David PK, the recovery partition can get you Windows 8 back, then you upgrade to 8.1 via the store. They agree with Hazelnut and Andavari: do the upgrade to 8.1, then create an image for recovery.

All right Stonefish, I'll give you the answer to half of what you seek to do. But first, I want you to go back and reread the link I posted last night. Because what they are talking about is using the Linux command hdparm to reconstruct the DCO. Doing so is not without risk. Get it wrong and you brick the drive. What you are talking about is wiping the DCO. Unless the software utility you plan to use is 100% guaranteed utterly reliable, it sounds to me like you have a very good chance of turning your drive into a paperweight. Edited by Derek: I removed the rest of this post. I gave advice that if misunderstood or misused could have had serious consequences. I apologize for that. I'll only say that factory installed partitions and the drive configuration overlay are things best left alone.

It looks like you were a victim of the Conduit Toolbar. Read here how to use CCleaner to get rid of this item at startup: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/protect/forum/protect_other-protect_scanning/tb-verifier-error-message/6e00a9a2-08f4-4a31-8774-e683330bdefd?msgId=cf633f65-947e-4c49-a9aa-5e2485a04427 Edit: Sorry for the brief reply, I just answered another topic and I wanted to catch you before you logged off. Start CCleaner, then go to Tools, Startup, then look for the entry for Conduit. Then use Delete on the far right side of the panel. Hope this helps you out. - Derek

Deleting or wiping a hidden factory partition is one thing. But do you really want to be messing around with the drive configuration overlay? Doing so could turn your drive into a very expensive paperweight. Read here, all the way to the bottom:http://superuser.com/questions/642637/harddrive-wipe-out-hidden-areas-like-hpa-and-dco-also-after-malware-infection "Yep, and anything messing with firmware that is not explicitly understood can result and in some cases will result in an aluminum brick with round discoid shiny things and a very powerful magnet inside." – Fiasco Labs

I think to put things in perspective I'll offer an example: my older brother. To put it kindly, he is not as technically sophisticated as we are. He used his laptop for about two years before I installed CCleaner for him. The first time it ran, it came up with about 2.1 gigabytes of junk files to be removed. Now imagine having disk wiping being enabled as a part of file cleaning by default. Someone like him would be sitting there wondering "why is it taking so long?" , or "what did I do wrong?", or maybe "this CCleaner program is a piece of junk!". I think the default settings are geared more towards people like him, and the option to change them is left to the more technical users, like us. That being said, I do agree with you dir: Users should be made aware of the fact that their files are being deleted but not overwritten using the default settings.

Thanks Hazelnut. Just to clarify things, your disk is formatted like the first example in this link, whereas mine is formatted like the second:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825702.aspx Edit: I apologize if it seems I'm belaboring the point here; it's just that given my history with this machine and Windows 8, having more than one means of recovery is important to me.

Here is my absolute favorite Christmas song done by one of my favorite artists: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8YQqK5e5es (Heard it on the radio and had to see if it was on Youtube) Also, a funny song about winter in general: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilSgXcEMHmI

Forget about trying to say it three times - I read it three times and I hurt my head!

And another update: This afternoon I installed Linux Mint 16 Petra with the Cinnamon desktop. And so far, everything works. So now I have two operating systems to choose from. I'll probably use this for a week or two, then I might give Fedora a try, just to see how that works out.