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Upgrading hard drives

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phantomfreak
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Upgrading hard drives

Post by phantomfreak »

Been trying to update my computer, starting to get errors on one my drives. I bought two Western Digital black 3.5 HDD, one a 1 TB and the other a 2 TB drive. I was able to format the 1 TB and move my FS9 folders to there no problem. However I've run into issues trying to get the 2TB drive to work, I'm pretty sure it does. I should backup at this point and say that my older 500GB Western Digital HD's each have Windows 7 installed on them, something I mistakenly did years ago and thanks to Microsoft, I could not undo.

I put the new drive in, trying to do a clean install, and I get the no boot record or folder found press a key to continue; and the window s has detected a hardware or software change and you get the three options. Now for the fun part, my Windows 7 disk that I bought when I first got this computer, now decides that it does not want to work with my dvd player, I have a laptop as well and it did not work with it either. Any other cd or dvd works fine.

Would it be easier to try to clone my c: drive to transfer my OS to the new hard drive?

What's even better is I have to have both of the older drives installed in order for the computer to boot to windows.

My computer is a Cyberpower
ASUS M4A77TD motherboard
AMD Phenom X4 945 3.00Ghz
2 Western Digtal 500GB Hard drives (one is IDE and the other is SATA)
Bazinga!
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Firebird
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by Firebird »

OK, I think that I know what you have come up against but please correct me if I misunderstood something.

Firstly, you didn't say whether you have Windows 32 or Windows 64. Also whether your disks are MBR or GPT. It does matter.
If your Windows is 32 bit then you can't use GPT disks. Windows 64 you can.

If in doubt always go for setting a disk for GPT. An MBR disk is decades old system and relies on 1 set in stone track on an MBR disk that contains all your boot and partition information for that disk. You lose that and you are screwed. The makeup of the disk is lost. Nasty people with nasty viruses and worms attack that very track, as they know where it is. This is why it is important to back up your boot track.

A GPT disk deliberately makes a duplicate copy of this info at the beginning and the end of the disk. If one gets trashed no problem.
A GPT disk is also able to use the UEFI boot method. This is a small partition on your system disc that contains the boot info.
All computers these days come with GPT disks and use UEFI.

If your system supports UEFI, your bios should tell you or any manual that you have - or search the net for your motherboard, then as you are replacing your system disk it might be a good time to move to UEFI and GPT disks.

Now A quick check online says that to fix or create a mbr on a disk you need a windows 7 disk. As you need that anyway to do a fresh install you are going to have to get hold of one.
I would suggest trying that Windows 7 disk in another computer to be sure it is corrupted/scratched/warped but you seem to indicate that it is.

So if it is you are left with 3 options. One not very realistic, find a Windows 7 disk from somewhere. The second option is to clone your disk and the third option is to buy Windows 10.

The second option sounds the most palatable but it does rely on you backing up your master boot record. If you are able to clone the C Drive to the new disk it still will not boot unless it contains the MBR record.
So what you need is to hope that your backup software has the ability to back up entire drives. When I had a MBR boot system my Acronis TruImage backup for the boot disk always two parts. the MBR and the C Drive.
Hopefully yours does too.

If so backup the entire disk. I assume that your backup has bootable media to enable you to recover the C drive. Then replace the boot disk with the new one and restore the entire drive. It doesn't matter if your C Drive is smaller the space it could take you can always extend that later.

So I think I Will stop here so that you can think about what your system and what it can and can't do.
Once I find out more info then I can answer more specifically.
Steve
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phantomfreak
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by phantomfreak »

I'm using Windows 7 64 bit home premium, and this computer I've had since 2008.
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by Firebird »

OK so it might be that you might or might not have UEFI capability. Can you check in your bios or possibly online for your motherboard?

Also does your backup software back up the entire disk, i.e. track by track?
Steve
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phantomfreak
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by phantomfreak »

I'm pretty sure that I don't have UEFI capability. I copied all my files onto an external hard drive. I'll have to try the Acornis.

If I'm not mistake the Windows 7 disk contains the installation and all software to run 7?
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by Firebird »

Yes it does, it will also format your target drive as well to accept the installation, i.e. put an MBR record onto it.

So if you do not have UEFI then you need an MBR boot partition so you can forget what i have said about GPT. So if you have/get a backup system then you can continue on Windows 7 with the limitation that if you need to reinstall/repair the system then you have no choice but to get a Windows 7 disk. I am assuming here that you do have your Windows 7 code still.

I will ignore the option of buying Windows 10 for this reason. Windows 10 prefers UEFI, Windows 11 has to have it. Windows 10 versions are being phased out of support far quicker than previous versions of Windows.

So we are at a tipping point here. Obtain a Windows 7 disk or you are looking at getting a new PC if you get a corrupt system.

If you decide to get Acronis then the cheapest version does not include online backup, so you will need space to keep your backups and external SSD will do fine and a USB stick to turn into a bootable media recovery system.
I am not trying to persuade you to go that way, there are obviously others out there and I would imagine that you all use a similar recovery system.
Steve
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phantomfreak
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by phantomfreak »

Some good news is, I found a Win 7 disk in my collection that boots. After I finish doing a format of the new drive, I'll try this other disk and go from there.
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by Firebird »

Well you have staved off the apocalypse - for now.
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by phantomfreak »

Back up and running, now to just catch up on the latest project.
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Re: Upgrading hard drives

Post by Firebird »

Glad you managed to get out of the situation.
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