Help Me: Alright, so my hard disk is failing

[AoxomoxoA]

So basically my hard disk overheated and it damaged badly so there's a lot of weird shit going on with my computer(it refuses to turn on, the sound goes off, the internet shuts down) and I know that the end is nay. I have this external harddrive, a really old one yet it's new. Is it possible to somehow hook up this drive to my laptop(it's huge), transfer my info, and somehow make it the "main" drive? I wouldn't mind scotch taping it to my computer somehow. Thanks.

[Mashleshmash]

scotch tape? LOL

[Duke Zion]

You cant make an external drive a boot drive, you have to buy a new internal one, which you have to order the exact model/brand as the one that came with your computer.

[LSA King]

Originally Posted by Duke Zion

You cant make an external drive a boot drive, you have to buy a new internal one, which you have to order the exact model/brand as the one that came with your computer.

That's not quite true, but your motherboard does need to support booting from USB in the bios and if it's as old of a hard drive and PC as you make it seem, it probably wont. Still worth it to check.

I'd suggest imaging your hard disk right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...oning_software (good list some free others you can try and pirate) - Acronis is the defacto standard and easy to pirate.

Copy the drive bit-for-bit and save that to the external drive. Once finished remove dead drive and insert new drive reloading the software you used (or if you made a boot disc) and re-copy the image back to the new drive. That's probably the best bet.

If you're certain the problem was from overheating, which I'm curious to know how you know that, then you probably don't have too much time before errors start creeping up. No telling how far it damaged things.

[Mashleshmash]

He was telling me the power button was hot to the touch. The fuck right?

[AoxomoxoA]

I blocked the fan.

[IIIII]

This is still a valid temporary remedy if you need to pull data from the failed drive:

http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/PDF/200ways.pdf

[Duke Zion]

Originally Posted by LSA King

That's not quite true, but your motherboard does need to support booting from USB in the bios and if it's as old of a hard drive and PC as you make it seem, it probably wont. Still worth it to check.

I'd suggest imaging your hard disk right now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...oning_software (good list some free others you can try and pirate) - Acronis is the defacto standard and easy to pirate.

Copy the drive bit-for-bit and save that to the external drive. Once finished remove dead drive and insert new drive reloading the software you used (or if you made a boot disc) and re-copy the image back to the new drive. That's probably the best bet.

If you're certain the problem was from overheating, which I'm curious to know how you know that, then you probably don't have too much time before errors start creeping up. No telling how far it damaged things.

This must be supported by newer computers, my old laptop would not boot from an external and I tried many techniques

[Mashleshmash]