Hard Drive Heart Attack!!!!

markyzno
Also worth noting that sometimes, if its a hard drive failure, you'll get the "clicks of death" as you boot up. i.e you'll hear the HD trying to work but like a broken groove in a record gets stuck....Not sure if this is the case with SSDs but they RARELY go down anyway....

mettelus

R3V3RB
I have other drives and things, and have procrastinated thus far about properly backing up. But it got me wondering whether I can simply back up the entire drive somehow?

I will section this, as I am typing it this is already getting longer, but hope it can help some others.
 
Backing up data (not imaging) background:

With an external drive, for backups, I use the xcopy command and create .bat files to run them. The advantage of xcopy is that if you use good organization, it can be set to only copy newer (or non-existent) files to the destination. For the first run this will, of course, copy everything; but on subsequent runs becomes incredibly quick (even with hundreds of thousands of files) since it examines directory by directory and copies (newer) as it goes.
 
As an example, I will share how I do this. My setup is an SSD (OS/Programs/Plugins) as the C: drive, and a partitioned 3TB into an 1TB E: drive (games and garbage), and 2TB F: drive (Projects, audio libraries, etc.)
 
As I also do not trust my SSD, I work on my desktop mostly (non-SONAR stuff) and keep folders there, which keep my "data" on the C: drive mostly (not all) confined to the C:\users\[main user] directory (the desktop is a sub directory). I have a batch file to put data from C: (the SSD) onto F: (the HDD), and runs quick.
 
The second backup I do is a bit more intensive that copies the F: drive to an external 1TB drive (G:)
 
The xcopy command (how I set it up and use it):
Info on the xcopy command can be found here. The way I employ this is as follows:
 
xcopy [top level source folder] [top level destination folder] /d /c /s /e
pause
 
the switches (/[character] as the end) tell it to:
   /d = Copies only newer files (with no date included, this is the default)
   /c = Continues copying even if errors occur (if you copy a directory with system files it will get an access error, so this ignores those).
   /s = Copies folders and subfolders except for empty ones (so that your directory tree is duplicated on the destination).
   /e = Copies any subfolder, even if it is empty (this ensures the directory tree is complete, and is used in tandem with /s above).
 
the pause is used to keep the CMD window open when done so that I can see how many files it copied (otherwise it flashes closed so fast I do not see it).
 
How to create the xcopy batch file:
 
I use two batch files most often. The first moves data from the SSD to the internal HDD and is run often. The second moves things to an external HDD and run less frequently.
 
To create the batch file, open NotePad, and enter the xcopy commands. As example, for my machine, the file to copy the SSD to the internal HDD is:
 
          xcopy c:\users\michael f:\michael /d /c /s /e
         pause
 
I then save this to my desktop (so easily found/used) and change the extension from .txt to .bat. Then to edit it later, can right click and select "Edit." To execute the batch file(s), I right click and select "Run as administrator."
 
How (I personally) employ xcopy:
 
Batch file (#1) to copy the SSD to the internal HDD, is the same as the one above.
 
Batch file (#2) to copy the internal HDD to an external HDD:
 
          xcopy F:\ G:\ /d /c /s /e
          pause
 
          xcopy C:\ProgramData G:\ProgramData /d /c /s /e
          pause
 
Since the users directory has already been copied to the internal HDD, this makes a second copy of it on the external (which allows me to clean out the C: drive (SSD) version to free space on the SSD and know I have 2 backups just in case).
 
I have also copied the C:\Program Files and C:\Program Files (x86) to an external HDD as data is stored there for some programs, but backups to these are infrequent.
 
 I cannot believe I typed such a long post, so I hope it helps someone! With (all of) this said, I also recommend creating an image of the C: drive, just in case that drive does fail and you need to install a new drive to get your machine back up and running "as is."
  

arachnaut
I prefer Robocopy over Xcopy.
 

dan le
To all of you who claim that you have a perfect backup.
If you use Acronis for instance to clone your c: drive, and your c: drive goes kaput, then you restore to a brand NEW c: drive, then do you have to REAUTHORIZE all programs and plugins that need to be authorized though?
dan
 

river
 
I was actually successful with installing a clone after a system rebuild that included a new mobo. I wasn't expecting it to work, but it did.