Repairing a glitched up HDD

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Repairing a glitched up HDD

by ChuckBrotman Sep 29, 2014 7:54AM PDT

Hello,
My Wife's Laptop Hard drive went belly up. It is a "Momentus 750GB hybrid drive. I moved it to my desktop PC and ran "7-data Partition Recovery" on it.

After several days and hours of work. I now have what appears to be the entire recovered HD approx 700GB of file data on an external Hard drive. I think the only files which didn't makeit were those that were trapped by my virus checker. I'll worry about those later.

My Question is: what's the best way to restore the physical drive sothat she'll be able to boot and run Windows 8 again? Of course I have no Win8 install disc, "Thank you very much Microsoft!" However Samsung was nice enough to send me a "restore disc" which will reinstall all the initial software (and included junkware!)
MY current path is to wait for the Restore CD use it to write over the existing HDD and then attempt to copy all the files from the restore directory on my external HDD to the laptop boot drive either the original (if it will still work) or a replacement if it is totally fried (cant be too bad, I guess, I recovered 700gb of data in 7 Partitions (Both NTFS and FAT)) .

Will this be enough to recreate her hard drive to just before the failure?

Is there a better way to proceed? Any gotchas I should be aware of like files being uncopiable, read only etc?? do I need to do something special with the partition's placement, boot records, MFTs, etc?? I'm not at all familiar with these aspects of window 8
Thank you in advance for your help...
Chuck

Note: This post was edited by a forum moderator to remove email address to prevent abuse by spammers on 09/29/2014 at 5:13 PM PT

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9 Posts

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Clarification Request

Do we need to discuss OEM versus full versions again?

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Sep 29, 2014 7:58AM PDT

And yes, at Digital River (please do some searching?) there are full up Windows DVDs. Those have been out there for years so why not use that if you must and pay for the upgrade?

Some feel entitled to media, a license beyond the OEM and more. But can we skip all that?
Bob

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Do we need to discuss OEM versus full versions again?

by ChuckBrotman Sep 29, 2014 8:32AM PDT

I know, in principle, that there are differences between the M$ full and OEM versions, but I thought they were confined to licensing. What benefit, other than the ability to reinstall more easily, would I find from paying to "upgrade" to the "full" version of windows 8???

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OK, let's pare it down to the basic OEM "Why?" question.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Sep 29, 2014 8:40AM PDT

Let's say your OEM elects to not support all of Windows. Yes, that's the deal for the low price OEM license. That is, you can't call MSFT so the OEM may strip the OS of things they don't want to support. One of those that repeatedly come up is the "clean install" from a Microsoft issued image.

The OEM does not support that so they don't supply that. The reduced price model is driven by reducing calls for support so the OEM makes restore systems that just restore it all to a factor condition.

-> I find folk today can't reinstall Windows. Most explode over what happens when they boot and do the usual repair install. That is, the hardware may stop responding, WiFi won't turn on and the list is very long. Microsoft's stock issue of the OS is blind to today's hardware. Even with all the drivers for most machines, WiFi won't turn on.

I'm going to test you here. Do you know why?
Bob

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conflicting messages???

by ChuckBrotman Sep 29, 2014 11:42AM PDT

Robert? Is it Robert?? I feel like your posts are kind of contradictory. On the one hand you tell me that I should "upgrade" to the non OEM version of Win 8, on the other you seem to imply that the "Stock issue" presumably the one I would download and buy from MS is unlikely to run anyway.

So, have you any advice to share that I can act upon??

Regards,
Chuck

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Why I asked is because

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Sep 30, 2014 2:00AM PDT

Installing Windows from the full up Microsoft issued DVD involves post OS install work that I find folk imploding or exploding. That is, this is an old OS (yes it is) which assumes the installer will know to install drivers and apps needed to get the machine fully functional after the basic OS install.

My question was to put that up for discussion. Yes, there are folk that want to write Microsoft should have addressed this area but it's a dinosaur of a company and slow to adapt.

I didn't write the OS would not run. The OS will run just fine. It's all the hardware features that may not be turned on until you do all the post-OS install work.
Bob

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E-mail in clear

by ChuckBrotman Sep 29, 2014 9:14AM PDT

Oh, Crap, I did didn't I! I should know better! And, I can't even blame it on an automatic siggy.

DOH!

Thanks for pointing that out!!!

Chuck
[email withheld on request of author]

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Answer

In the interim;

by James Denison Sep 30, 2014 2:35AM PDT

If you have already backed up your wife's files, why not install a full operating system of a Linux distro on it for FREE? I use Linux Mint MATE and love it. I'm a former windows user, dumped Vista and never looked back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB6RR-3vJZ4

good video for beginners for Linux Mint 17 MATE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMHjUqRfmC8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G7TJyZPKPo

One warning; It's addictive.

http://linuxmint.com/

Comes in 4 desktop version; MATE, KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE,

Comes in 32 bit for older computers or 64 bit, the latter for use with GPT hard drives, EFI and UEFI capable.

If she likes it, but wants windows too, you can have a boot choice to run whichever you want at the time. If she wants windows only, for the interim she will have an operating system to use till you can restore windows.

Oh, it can run direct from the DVD as a "read only" OS, using a RAM drive it sets up, but this means any changes won't be persistent due to "read only" nature of a DVD. You can however save files wanted to the hard drive and those will reamain there.

(former windows user)

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Problem solved... but not by me...

by ChuckBrotman Oct 2, 2014 5:07AM PDT

First off: Thanks to all who replied.

My wife "solved" the problem! She went out and purchased a new Lenovo laptop with windows 8.1! to be fair, she uses her Laptop for her bookkeeping business and didn't have the time or patience to wait around while I tried to get her up and running on the original hardware. The bad drive turned out not to be the only problem with the hardware (Long story -- I'll spare you). Not how I would have proceeded, but I'd probably still be wrestling with it andher business needs supercede my desire to hack a cheaper solution!

For my part I recovered all her files and gave them to here on a USB 3.0 drive. I also purchased an external backup drive for her to use in the future.

Thanks for the Linux suggestions. It might have been a possibility for me but, though she is reasonably proficient in using windows, trying to switch her her to a new OS would probably not fly!!

Talk to y'all next time,

Chuck [no email address listed] Brotman

Back to Windows 8 forum

Dafydd · Accepted Answer · Sep 29, 2014 8:41AM PDT

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Just a heads up.

by Dafydd Sep 29, 2014 8:41AM PDT

You posted your email in the clear. Spambots love that.

Dafydd.

Repairing a glitched up HDD

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