Paul Crowley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ciphergoth) wrote2008-12-30 01:01 pm
ciphergoth) wrote2008-12-30 01:01 pm
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Advice sought: replacing a dying hard drive under Windows
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lovelybug's hard drive is dying; the logs are full of errors and her applications are falling apart.
I've bought a larger replacement. My first thought was to make a bit-for-bit copy of the old drive onto the new, but that fell over trying to copy sectors that seem to have become entirely unreadable.
The machine runs Windows XP Pro. I could install Windows on the new hard drive and copy over the files; this would have the advantage that the applications could all be reinstalled and might start working again. But where do I get a copy of Windows to install (the machines did not come with Windows install disks) and how do I re-use our existing Windows license?
NBlovelybug wants to continue using Windows XP, though of course I'm more than happy to use Linux based tools for the low-level stuff.
lovelybug's hard drive is dying; the logs are full of errors and her applications are falling apart.I've bought a larger replacement. My first thought was to make a bit-for-bit copy of the old drive onto the new, but that fell over trying to copy sectors that seem to have become entirely unreadable.
The machine runs Windows XP Pro. I could install Windows on the new hard drive and copy over the files; this would have the advantage that the applications could all be reinstalled and might start working again. But where do I get a copy of Windows to install (the machines did not come with Windows install disks) and how do I re-use our existing Windows license?
NB
lovelybug wants to continue using Windows XP, though of course I'm more than happy to use Linux based tools for the low-level stuff.