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Question

Windows 8 hard drive install and reistalling win 8

by May 20, 2014 6:48AM PDT

hi all. I have a problem and its driving me crazy, 1st off I'm no computer wiz but can do some things on them so please be understanding. here is my problem about 7 months ago I got a new gateway sx2110-ub25 with win 8 for my wife she was using my dads old computer with vista on it and was having problems with it. I was going to be gone for 6 months and wanted her to have some thing to use that would not give her problems, she doesn't need a lot of a computer since its just for e-mail and internet and etc. no gaming or anything like that. anyways when I got back home her computer wasn't working it would just boot up and try and fix itself till it would shut down, well I didn't have time before I left to make the recover discs so after spending a few days messing with it I went to the gateway store and got the recover disc and when they came I reinstalled win 8. well after 14hrs of updates and reinstalling other software I was thinking it was fixed, well it worked fine for 3 days and then I turned it off, started it back up and it worked I went to the store later that night and when I got back a hr later it had shut down and was off. the next morning I went to turn it on and it wouldn't start, it said there was a problem with disc files so I turned it off a few hrs later I tried again and it started but runs slow for a hr or two then stops. now for the last week its hit or miss if it will run or not. during that time I tried to put a diff hard drive in the machine but it would not take the recover discs to load the software ( its a hard drive I had extra from my other computer no os on it just a slave) so I took that one back out of her machine and put back the one that came with it ( there is no room in this computer for 2 hard drives) and reloaded win 8 again because it would not run. now within a day its doing the same thing, some times it starts and runs slow and sometime nothing... I have no idea what to do now cause I was thinking of trying to clone it since I have been reading about that but there's no room to add the extra hd in the gateway!!! I have put back the extra hd into the tower that has vista on it and reformatted it in there but havn't done anything else to it. So what should I do now??? any help would be Great cause I need to get her pos computer working

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Clarification Request
Next time try to use some paragraph breaks.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator May 20, 2014 7:09AM PDT

I'm guessing you want to clone the HDD. And for that I use an Apricom USB 3.0 adapter. But it sounds well inside warranty so why do anything but get it repaired?
Bob

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sry about no paragraph breaks
by macinckirk May 20, 2014 7:55AM PDT

it is under warranty but they want me to send it in and there talking about 4 weeks to get back, so by the time I pay shipping and wait for it, I was thinking maybe I could just fix it

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Answer
Get an external hard drive and back that sucker up.
by May 20, 2014 7:11AM PDT

There're plenty of good 3rd party computer backup programs out there. I suggest you get away from the Windows backup program and get yourself a good commercial backup program. I've seen forums fraught with problem reports for the Windows one. I know I was very unimpressed when I tried it. Two I'm familiar with and like are Easeus Todo Backup Free, and Memeo which has a 30 day free trial and you can buy it for $29.99.
The March 2012 issue of PC World was very high on the FREE program from Easeus and so is CNET. In my experience with a variety of configurations I have to say I'm very impressed. Like Ghost (which unfortunately is no longer on the market) it will back up to a networked drive, and it will create a boot CD for when your PC won't boot. See CNET's review of it at
http://download.cnet.com/Easeus-Todo-Backup-Free/3000-2242_4-10964460.html?tag=mncol;1#editorsreview .
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CNET has a lot of backup program reviews at
http://download.cnet.com/windows/backup-software/?tag=contentBody;sideBar .

Some of these are free (last time I checked there were over 300), some have free trials (over 1000), and some are purchase only (over 200).
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External hard drives are best for backup. You can get a 500 GB one for around $50 and a 1 TB one for around $60. You can also buy a 32 GB flash drive for under $20. It's the best insurance you can ever buy!

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I hope this helps. Good luck

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Answer
" she was using my dads old computer with vista on it and...
by May 20, 2014 11:40AM PDT
" she was using my dad's old computer with vista on it and was having problems with it.....she doesn't need a lot of a computer since its just for e-mail and internet and etc. no gaming or anything like that...."

Your Dad still use the Vista computer? If not and wife doesn't want to use that system, why not try something different she might like better? Download this and burn the "image" to a DVD-RW. It creates a LIVE DVD which is a system you can run direct from the DVD to see if interested in it. If so, it can be installed side by side with Windows Vista, and she can choose it instead if she liked it. It comes with Thunderbird email and Firefox browser. Seems she's shopping around for a more pleasing operating system, and this might be it. Oh, it's free.

It might help while waiting for the other computer to be fixed.
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