The ultimate problem on a PC. It just would not boot up. The BIOS was trying to boot from the second hard drive and could not find the first. When I disabled the second hard drive the BIOS could not find a drive at all.
Removing the tray and then the drive from the tray I could feel it spinning but there was no sign of recognition even from my SATA docking station.
This was the disaster I knew would come and fortunately I was prepared.
My hard drives are mounted in removable trays, so I could easily swap from Win 7 to my XP drive, and that booted perfectly, proving, if I still needed proof, that it was a problem with the drive and nothing else.
But I had an easy way back to business. A month ago I had cloned my main drive using software called HDclone from Miray Software in Germany.
All I had to do was replace the faulty drive in the removable tray with the cloned one...that means loosening the tray cover, sliding that off then undoing four screws, replacing the drive, doing up the screws, sliding on and tightening the cover (one screw) and sliding it into the caddy. That takes about three minutes.
Reboot and there is my OS as it was a month ago. Copy back some files from the usual weekly backup via DriveImage (OK that software is ancient and I'll go for TrueImage when the Win7 version of that is out next month, but the old one still works perfectly) and the past day or so's email and Firefox history plus the password safe data from my thumbdrive (thanks to MozBackup).
I've since cloned the drive again and updated the cloned copy of my XP system. That takes time, but not when I have to be present. The PC will chug away for the 5 or 6 hours the cloning process takes.
The Mira website states that the latest version can create cloned drives even from within Windows but I'm currently using a bootable CD made by copying their .iso file to a CD-R. And the paid versions claim to work at twice the speed, and to be able to clone partitions as well as a full drive.
Even so, the company suggests that, to prove that the software will work on your system, you first download the free version and create a cloned drive. The appeal of then being able to do it in half the time will woo most users. The Basic edition as a download costs about US$25 (they price in Euros).
As I said, the software will work within Windows but as a self-booting CD it will copy just about any drive with any OS to any other drive which is at least the same size. And since the downloaded zip file includes an .iso file, Mac and Linux users should be able to create the bootable CD.
I'm not making any special claims for them, more for cloning as an adjunct to other backup systems. There are at least five other ways to clone a drive. See this page at Downloadquad
This was the second cloning application I tried and it did all that I needed, and simply, so I've stuck with it.
Oh yes, unless you want to read the manual, have one of those (usually green) converter plugs ready to put your mouse in via the PS/2 port instead of USB, though Mira may well have solved that with the new version that I'll download shortly.
Next time someone asks if you backup you can then say "I clone".
Removing the tray and then the drive from the tray I could feel it spinning but there was no sign of recognition even from my SATA docking station.
This was the disaster I knew would come and fortunately I was prepared.
My hard drives are mounted in removable trays, so I could easily swap from Win 7 to my XP drive, and that booted perfectly, proving, if I still needed proof, that it was a problem with the drive and nothing else.
But I had an easy way back to business. A month ago I had cloned my main drive using software called HDclone from Miray Software in Germany.
All I had to do was replace the faulty drive in the removable tray with the cloned one...that means loosening the tray cover, sliding that off then undoing four screws, replacing the drive, doing up the screws, sliding on and tightening the cover (one screw) and sliding it into the caddy. That takes about three minutes.
Reboot and there is my OS as it was a month ago. Copy back some files from the usual weekly backup via DriveImage (OK that software is ancient and I'll go for TrueImage when the Win7 version of that is out next month, but the old one still works perfectly) and the past day or so's email and Firefox history plus the password safe data from my thumbdrive (thanks to MozBackup).
I've since cloned the drive again and updated the cloned copy of my XP system. That takes time, but not when I have to be present. The PC will chug away for the 5 or 6 hours the cloning process takes.
The Mira website states that the latest version can create cloned drives even from within Windows but I'm currently using a bootable CD made by copying their .iso file to a CD-R. And the paid versions claim to work at twice the speed, and to be able to clone partitions as well as a full drive.
Even so, the company suggests that, to prove that the software will work on your system, you first download the free version and create a cloned drive. The appeal of then being able to do it in half the time will woo most users. The Basic edition as a download costs about US$25 (they price in Euros).
As I said, the software will work within Windows but as a self-booting CD it will copy just about any drive with any OS to any other drive which is at least the same size. And since the downloaded zip file includes an .iso file, Mac and Linux users should be able to create the bootable CD.
I'm not making any special claims for them, more for cloning as an adjunct to other backup systems. There are at least five other ways to clone a drive. See this page at Downloadquad
This was the second cloning application I tried and it did all that I needed, and simply, so I've stuck with it.
Oh yes, unless you want to read the manual, have one of those (usually green) converter plugs ready to put your mouse in via the PS/2 port instead of USB, though Mira may well have solved that with the new version that I'll download shortly.
Next time someone asks if you backup you can then say "I clone".
What happened to the failed drive? It was out of warranty with the dealer I bought it from, well over 12 months, but he suggested I look at the drive maker's website. That was Seagate. They have a page to enter the model and serial numbers and if it is within 5 years of manufacture, they replace it. I got a return number, sent it off and within two weeks a replacement came back. Only cost was one-way freight to get it to their depot.
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