Hello.  I know that I'm new here, but I'm looking for some rather simple help.  One of my hard drives is about ready to kick the bucket and I need to back the data up to my spare drive.  I'm pretty sure that the drive that's dying is the one that I have windows installed on.  So, my question is, if I copy all of the files from the dying drive that has widnows installed on it to my spare one, is windows still going to run correctly?  If not, is there any other way to back it up without having to reinstall windows?  I normally wouldn't mind reinstalling windows, but the last time I did it, I vowed that if I had to do it again, I was going to switch to linux.

Thanks in advance for any help,
FaNtAsMa

Funny, installing Windows has never been particularly difficult for me.

I suggest you boot to a linux ISO that gives you access to a root prompt (Slackware's install disc would work).  Then:

[pre]
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M --progress
[/pre]

This will make a byte-for-byte copy of your hard drive, including partition table.  Make sure your new hard drive is at least as big, or bigger, as your old drive.

[quote author=MyndFyre link=topic=12966.msg130090#msg130090 date=1128559666]
Funny, installing Windows has never been particularly difficult for me.

I suggest you boot to a linux ISO that gives you access to a root prompt (Slackware's install disc would work).  Then:

[pre]
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M --progress
[/pre]

This will make a byte-for-byte copy of your hard drive, including partition table.  Make sure your new hard drive is at least as big, or bigger, as your old drive.
[/quote]I will give that a shot.  Would this work with a knoppix boot disc?  Would there be any trouble with it and my NTFS file system?

It's not that installing windows is hard, it's just that doing it over and over again is somewhat annoying.

Yes, konopix will work
No, this makes an exact copy of all of the data on the first hard drive.

Ok, so I finally got knoppix downloaded and there's a problem.  When I try to do it, it says this:

root@0[knoppix]# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M --progress
dd: unrecognized option `--progress'
Try `dd --help' for more information.

So, I tried it without the progress and it says this:

root@0[knoppix]# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1M
dd: reading `/dev/hda': Input/output error
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.000692 seconds (0 bytes/sec)

After this, I tried using the letters as knoppix has them labled.

root@0[knoppix]# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/hdb1 bs=1M
dd: reading `/dev/hda1': Input/output error
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes transferred in 0.000704 seconds (0 bytes/sec)


Does this mean that the harddrive is completely shot?

Hmm..

Type "cat /etc/fstab"

The /dev/?da or /dev/?db (probably /dev/sda and /dev/sdb) are the hard-drives you want.

Also, aren't there links to your hard-drive partitions on your desktop?

If so, tell us their names.

In the end, you want to dd if=olddrive of=newdrive -bs=1M --progress

[quote author=Newby link=topic=12966.msg130172#msg130172 date=1128645043]
Hmm..

Type "cat /etc/fstab"

The /dev/?da or /dev/?db (probably /dev/sda and /dev/sdb) are the hard-drives you want.

Also, aren't there links to your hard-drive partitions on your desktop?

If so, tell us their names.

In the end, you want to dd if=olddrive of=newdrive -bs=1M --progress
[/quote]

root@0[knoppix]# cat /etc/fstab
/proc      /proc      proc  defaults            0 0
/sys      /sys        sysfs  noauto              0 0
/dev/pts  /dev/pts    devpts mode=0622          0 0
/dev/fd0  /mnt/auto/floppy auto  user,noauto,exec,umask=000    0 0
/dev/cdrom /mnt/auto/cdrom  auto  user,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
/dev/cdrom1 /mnt/auto/cdrom1  auto  users,noauto,exec,ro 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb1 /mnt/hdb1 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0
# Added by KNOPPIX
/dev/hdb2 /mnt/hdb2 auto noauto,users,exec 0 0


The drives on the desktop are hda1, hdb1, and hdb2.  Hmm, perhaps I need to reformat my spare hard drive?  I believe that it was formatted to work for Fedora Core 3.

:EDIT: Also, how the hell do I get JavaOp2 running on linux?  I used to know how to do it, but I can't figure it out anymore  :-\

Ok, now, mount all of those drives (double click the icons on your desktop that say Hard Drive or whatever) and figure out which of the /dev/hd?'s is your Windows drive. My best guess is hda1... but confirm it.

I've tried mounting them.. it says something about a file system not being present.

[quote author=FaNtAsMa link=topic=12966.msg130176#msg130176 date=1128646993]
:EDIT: Also, how the hell do I get JavaOp2 running on linux?  I used to know how to do it, but I can't figure it out anymore  :-\
[/quote]

I think it is 'Java filename' but I really don't rember

Nononononono!  Don't copy the partitions.  Do NOT copy /dev/hda1.  You need to copy without a number after.

If you copy with partition numbers, you'll copy the data and the file system, but the computer won't know that there is even a partition there unless you've created a partition table already.

Ok, I restarted knoppix and it's working the way it's supposed to now.. minus the --progress thing.  --progress doesn't seem to be a valid option or whatever of dd.

I hope /dev/hdb is your new drive... :P

Ok, so the copying is done and it seems to have been sucsessful, but when I try to boot with it, I'm getting a no boot disk detected error.  So, I tried booting into knoppix and my second hard drive wasn't detected.  The first one mounts fine and appears to have everything the way it should be.  My second hard drive works fine in my other computer.  Is there something wrong with the IDE cable on this computer?  The motherboard?  Something else?

:EDIT: Ok, got windows working, but I'm not sure for how long.  I switched the new master drive to Master on the jumpers instead of Cable Select and it worked, but they're still making clicking noises when the computer is started.