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I have two laptops, a Dell XPS running 64-bit and HP Pavilion 32-bit and I want to replace the Dell hard drive with the hard drive in the HP temporarily because my Dell laptop became very slow and I want to test if the problem is with the hard drive or something else. The question is: Can I do that without losing data in the two hard drives? I know that maybe data on C partitions will be deleted and that's OK, but will the rest of the data will be lost or not?
Mina Hafzalla
Posted 2013-11-18T21:13:09.027
Reputation: 173
It depends on your plan of the entire action. What exactly are you going to do? – gronostaj – 2013-11-18T21:19:06.123
Thank you for your reply, I'm just gonna take the hp hard disk and put in the dell to see if the dell laptop works fine with this hard disk or not. If it worked fine then the problem will be in the dell hard disk causing it slower and lags and I will replace it with a new one. @gronostaj – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T21:23:29.120
It won't boot. Windows installations are configured for the hardware they are installed on. You can try plugging it as a secondary drive instead of optical drive, but this way you won't be able to test it reliably. – gronostaj – 2013-11-18T21:24:13.810
Unless you plan to reinstall the OS, data should be safe. However, I am skeptical about OS itself. If its OEM copy, it may not work on laptop of other brand.. – tumchaaditya – 2013-11-18T21:24:15.653
Replacing the HD just because the OS is slow might not be the best solution. Perhaps your OS (in the Dell) is slow for a reason other than the HD. (For instance if your %temp% directory is too big, Virusscanner is in the way, etc...) If you're planning to clone the HD you might up with the same slowness and if you re-install the OS on a new HD you'll never know for sure what caused the slowness. Did you do a HD check (in case you HD is defective)? Did you run CCleaner (in case your OS is messy)? – Rik – 2013-11-18T21:30:48.760
@gronostaj Yes, maybe you are right at this point. I just tested the HDD with HD tune pro and it came up with 31 damaged sectors and 104402084 interface CRC error count. Does this indicates a hard disk failure? – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T21:45:31.767
2Backup... backup fast.... it might be ok but damaged sectors ussually mean a failing hd. If they get worse get a new one. – Rik – 2013-11-18T21:47:51.537
@tumchaaditya I have a bootable disk for windows 7 home premium 64-bit and another one 32-bit. – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T21:48:38.053
@Rik Thank you for your replies I really appreciate it. I will backup my valuable data now. Dell diagnostics didn't show any errors on the hard disk however, the HD tune pro shows those 31 damaged sectors and the interface CRC error count. My laptop lags in everything even while listening to music or watching videos it just freezes for a couple of seconds as if it paused and then continues. Do you advice to replace the hard disk or what? Thank you again. – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T21:56:22.423
Lagging is a typical symptom of dying hard drive. Appearance of bad sectors usually means the drive will die soon. With that many bad sectors you should consider that drive a ticking timebomb. As @Rik said, you should start doing backups right now. Keep drive usage to minimum to avoid wearing it further. – gronostaj – 2013-11-18T21:58:17.440
From what you've described, there's no way of knowing if the issue is the disk or the controller . . . your plan of using another disk to isolate isn't bad, but you likely won't be able to boot off a different systems hard drive . . . you'll most likely need a third hard drive to test with . . . – ernie – 2013-11-18T22:02:37.623
@gronostaj Thank you very much. I'm doing the backup now and probably will replace the hard disk with new one. – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T22:06:50.200
@ernie Thanks for your reply, The 31 damaged sectors indicates a dying HDD. Does the 104402084 interface CRC error count indicates a bad controller? – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T22:09:48.897
And after making the backup you can test the HD to your hearts desire. If HD Tune comes back with a higher number than before the drive is probably failing and needs to be replaced. (Or if somebody has better idea at least you have the backup) You could for instance reformat the hd but if the bad sectors stay i wouldn't trust it anymore. – Rik – 2013-11-18T22:11:02.197
I formatted all the HDD two times before. Still lags and when I started the HD tune software it came up with the errors mentioned above. What do you suggest? Thank you again. @Rik – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T22:18:18.400
(After backup) you could do a complete surface scan. If after that the damaged sectors increased... toss the HD and get a new one. Increasing number of bad sectors almost always mean a failing drive. If they stay the same... then i don't know... You could use it but if it keeps lagging maybe it's still a physical problem. – Rik – 2013-11-18T22:26:24.357
Thank you for your suggestions @Rik .. I'll rescan it again and probably will replace the HDD with a new one. If you have any other suggestions please let me know. Thank you very much. – Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T22:35:09.177
I got these errors from HDDScan 3.3 software. It shows a S.M.A.R.T Report. Here is a screenshot http://oi40.tinypic.com/20qlwm1.jpg @Rik
– Mina Hafzalla – 2013-11-18T22:51:08.413