Could A Dying Hard Drive Cause Problems With Google And Other Weird Problems?

[Pib]

For folks buying computer items in Thailand I think many are familiar with JIB which has many stores around the country...here in Bangkok they are in many malls. When thinking about buying a computer item and would like to get an idea of the typical price in Thailand versus running around to a bunch of stores, and since JIB is a large operation in Thailand and usually on the below average side of prices for many computer items in Thailand, you can look at their Price List on their website at this Link. Cheers.

[lostinisaan]

Dear experts and expats,

Okay, I bought a new hard drive, but had to find out that a restore using Acronis didn't work out, through a missing, or corrupt file.

So I tried to put on a new Windows 7 program. But the DVD player with the W 7 won't play ( guess because of a missing driver on the new hard disk), so I'm a sort of confused.

I made a few set ups on PC's and have never encountered such a problem. The machine is a DELL Inspiron 1440.

Now I've got three options.

1. Buy an adapter to clone the new hard drive. ( Any idea if that works with Acronis 2014 True image, I mean the option is there..) )

2. Use an external disc drive, which I don't have.

3. Go to a shop and ask for help and might end up with a even bigger head ache.

I thought it would be that easy, had to Acronis back ups, just to find out that it doesn't work.

P.S. I'd imagine that cloning using a USB connection will take a long time, right?

Any advice would be deeply appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edited October 23, 2014 by lostinisaan

[kevin2852]

Hi again Laislika,

Your comment about the coreI7 is interesting because despite it's fancy name, it is only a standard 4 core processor. The only changes that can be made to it are by the operating system because in 64 Bit Win 7 Ult, It can address 64 Gigs of RAM, basically though, it is identical to the Quad cores that were issued over 4 years ago and only 5 or 6% faster.

[Pib]

I would recommend you do the cloning thing assuming your old hard drive still allows your computer to work. But when the dust settles any corrupt files/programs on your old hard drive will just be cloned over. Acronis comes with a cloning feature I thought on the paid version...in the trial version the cloning feature is deactivated now I think....guess too many people were downloading the trial version just to use the cloning feature once in a blue moon when swapping drives. However, what I've used to clone the last two times I've swapped hard drives over the last six months (i.e., switching a couple of laptop HDDs to SSDs) is use Macruim Reflect Free. You can download/install the Free or pay version at this site.

Install the free version on your current hard drive and then I recommend creating a Macruim "Bootable Rescue Disk" and then booting from that to accomplish the clone. Creating that bootable disk also copies over any drivers which may be needed to boot from the rescue disk...let you DVD/CDROM work. You can accomplish the clone using the Macrium software you installed by cloning with the old drive still in the computer and the new drive in a USB enclosure, but I prefer and some manufacturers recommend you actually put the new drive into the computer first, the old drive into the enclosure, and boot & clone for a rescue disk...for some computers that seems to increase the chances of a successful clone.

When I installed a Samsung 840 EVO SSD in one of my laptops and a Seagate 600 SSD in another of my laptops and used the Samsung and Seagate cloning programs with both I had problem in both cloning operations. Then I used the Macrium Reflect Free by using their Rescue Disk method and the new drive in the laptop and old drive in the enclosure and both clones went problem free.

As mentioned you need an external USB enclosure which you can pickup for around Bt200 to Bt300 at most any Thai computer store...be sure to get a USB 3.0 box as they still have plenty of USB 2.0 boxes out there....of course I'm assuming your laptop has USB 3.0 ports (blue color)...if not just get a USB 2.0 box if that is all you can find.

The last clone I did I think I only had about 150GB to clone and it took about an hour and half on a USB 3.0 port...a lot depends on the type of files you have...your computer's horsepower....and if you only have USB 2 ports on your computer it will take 2 to 3 times longer.

[laislica]

Hi lostinissan,

I feel for your frustration, but computers are like that.

If it were me.....

I assume you have a dvd or cd version of win 7.

I would re initiate the drive and format it again.

Then perform a clean install.

Then go through the whole BS of reloading all the apps again.

Perhaps an email to Del Support first?

Because of the desktop problems I mentioned, I ended up buying an Advent laptop,

It's a quad core, 4Gb RAM 6555, gaming machine. My desktop now has a similar spec.

This gave me instant backup and I was never without computer access.

Then splashed out on the top notch Sony for number crunching and I was sorted.

Earlier this year in Thailand I bought an iPad Air 64Gb and am very impressed.

I bought my wife a Samsung Galaxy 2 which is just the job.

If you have some spare cash, why not splash out and get something really good and mobile?

Good luck.

[laislica]

[kevin2852]

Hi Lostinissan,

Just a comment related to your DvD player, I suspect that you are using either Winmedia or VLC Player to drive the DvD. Win 7 is fairly compatible, but new players do not come fully Codec equipped, VLC in particular has a lot of issues with MP4 and AVI files. If you download and install a free codec pack ( say K5 ) for the individual player that you are using and then restart the machine I think you will find that the problems will disappear. For every new type of file, you need a codec to tell the player how to work it and straight out of the box, the only one that is codec equipped is the GOM player

[lostinisaan]

Hi lostinissan,

I feel for your frustration, but computers are like that.

If it were me.....

I assume you have a dvd or cd version of win 7.

I would re initiate the drive and format it again.

Then perform a clean install.

Then go through the whole BS of reloading all the apps again.

Perhaps an email to Del Support first?

Because of the desktop problems I mentioned, I ended up buying an Advent laptop,

It's a quad core, 4Gb RAM 6555, gaming machine. My desktop now has a similar spec.

This gave me instant backup and I was never without computer access.

Then splashed out on the top notch Sony for number crunching and I was sorted.

Earlier this year in Thailand I bought an iPad Air 64Gb and am very impressed.

I bought my wife a Samsung Galaxy 2 which is just the job.

If you have some spare cash, why not splash out and get something really good and mobile?

Good luck.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm really short before committing suicide, genocide, or anything similar.

I could finally make it happen that the Acronis started to work. It showed 1 day and 16 hours to complete. Well, better than shitting pants, that's what I thought.

But then it stopped after 5 hours, because of a freaking fragging non readable mistake. Went to a computer shop, the same, where they told me two days ago, that my warranty had ran out.

First thing the manager told me was that I still got warranty and I wanted to puke, as I had already bought a new one at another shop.

Okay, will have another storage hard drive, I don't really need.

Okay bought my case to make my cloning, told the guy I'd bring the hard drive tomorrow and they send ot to Bangkok and will give me a new one after about one month.

Then a strange look at the case, where the hard drive should fit in, the four connectors ( I think the ones for power supply) didn't connect. Okay connected it, but it can't be seen from my notebook, nor from my PC.

Tomorrow back to the shop and let them do it. Can't get anymore and all in all a waste of my holiday.

Thanks a lot for the good tips.

Edited October 23, 2014 by lostinisaan

[laislica]

To Lostinissan,

Good Man!

Staying calm!

More than 10 years ago we had a thunderstorm in Spain out in the countryside.

The lightening hit the power transmission overhead cabled and send a huge power spike to our house.

It killed loads of stuff, including a newish laptop.

This had happened already in 2004 but there was no house insurance.

This time the insurance guy came and they paid up.

Then I contacted the laptop maker and they said send it back and they put in a new motherboard.

When it came back, the WiFi didn't work but I choose not to complain. he he.

Did the new one have windows 8?

There is another fun learning curve LOL

I played on a friends new one for a day or two and was really glad to get back to Win 7!

Enjoy the new one and take your time to fix the other one,

and just think about..... you have learned soooo much about these darned things LOL

I bet you're looking forward to learning about networking the two computers now.

[lostinisaan]

To Lostinissan,

Good Man!

Staying calm!

More than 10 years ago we had a thunderstorm in Spain out in the countryside.

The lightening hit the power transmission overhead cabled and send a huge power spike to our house.

It killed loads of stuff, including a newish laptop.

This had happened already in 2004 but there was no house insurance.

This time the insurance guy came and they paid up.

Then I contacted the laptop maker and they said send it back and they put in a new motherboard.

When it came back, the WiFi didn't work but I choose not to complain. he he.

Did the new one have windows 8?

There is another fun learning curve LOL

I played on a friends new one for a day or two and was really glad to get back to Win 7!

Enjoy the new one and take your time to fix the other one,

and just think about..... you have learned soooo much about these darned things LOL

I bet you're looking forward to learning about networking the two computers now.

Hey, it's done by myself and working well.

The case I bought yesterday was faulty, so no way to be able to clone my hard drive. So I went back to the shop, thought they were able to clone a hard drive, but this is Thailand and these guys can't read English. Okay usually not.

All they can do is to copy some virusloaded bullshit on PC's and notebooks. Anything that pops up in English is ignored, as they don't know what it means.

But I'm aware of that, as I'm working at a school here. If Thai English teachers can't really speak English, how could a so called "technician" be better?

I sat there for three hours watching a young jerk doing unnecessary things, until I almost lost my temper.

Had to tell him not to format my old drive, then where to press, what to do. OMG......

Then I told him to bring me another case to insert my new drive and 'wush" I could see it. Paid a little more money, disconnected both drives and took off.

I went home, inserted my old drive, put the new one in the case and switched my Acronis on. I do have the paid version, which comes with cloning.

Started the process, all went fine and after 2 hours and a few minutes, I've got a brand new hard drive, no other set ups, no other nothing.

Sentinel checks it as 100 % healthy, so it didn't copy ant files that were not wanted. Thanks to Acronis and thanks to some guys on this forum.

Which -again- shows that people should never give up. I still don't understand what your Spanish adventure has to do with my dying hard drive?

Will give my old hard drive to the shop, get a new one in about a month and will clone my system as it is now.

Thanks to all for the mostly useful input.

Cheers-

Edited October 24, 2014 by lostinisaan