Hard drive replacement?

Question

I have my Sony PCV-RZ40CG desktop for several years with no problem. Recently, upon startup, it went to a screen saying something about a S.M.A.R.T system (which I never heard about in the past) and it was saying that the hard drive status was bad, and to back up/replace it... Well, I tried several different ways to back my stuff up to anouther drive, with the aid of a few friends who know this stuff, but with no luck.

Now, I only want to replace my hard drive with a new one, just to get it working again, and I'm putting off data recovery until later, but I'm not sure which drive to get. The original was a WD 200GB IDE, any suggestions?

Also, the computer came with no recovery disks, and when I first booted it, it wanted me to burn them myself... I was wondering, with the recovery disks I made, will I be able to reinstall the Windows XP Media Center Edition on the new drive? I really don't want to have to buy a new OS if possible. Ask if you have any ?'s, thanxx in advance.

As far as ghosting, no, I was one of those people who figured "hard drive crashes won't happen to me..." Well, once I get it going again, I'm gonna do every data backup method I know of =]

And the only reason I asked about if the recovery disks would work is because I tried to use them on my original drive, just to see if that would work, and it said that the recovery partition on the drive could not be read... which lead me to believe that the recovery disks require that of the original drive.

Hopefully, I'll be getting a new drive tomorrow, and I guess I'll see then... I appreciate the help, and any other info you can give would be most appreciated.

One last note, any suggestion of a good brand? I heard Maxtor is unreliable, and I personally don't want another WD, since just the day before it happened, it was in perfect working condition. Thanxx!

As far as Safe Mode goes, sometimes when I try to start it, it will let me choose Safe Mode, last known good configuration, etc... I have tried all the options several times, and it never loads past that, after a while on the Windows XP screen, I get a blue screen saying that there was a physical memory dump (or something like that) and to get my administrator... which, unfortunately, is myself, haha.

But yeah, won't even get to the logon screen, which is why I previously assumed the drive is just shot, and why I decided to just try to focus on getting it to work again for now.

Thanxx for all the info everyone, I'm gonna try it out probably tomorrow or Tusday, and I'll rate it after I (hopefully) get it up and running.

Answer 1

Yes you can put anysize hdd you wish and still use your recovery disk you made. I would look into getting larger hdd. Seagate has a 500gb IDE or SATA w/5yr warranty for $99-$119 everywhere. Then you can set the 200gb as the slave drive inside or in a external USB connection and pull all the files you want to save to the new drive and your set. Thanks

Answer 2

For a start you may not be able to recover the data afterwards. It is very easy to do a backup, either to another hard drive or to cd or dvd. The only things you can back up reliably are data files (images, documents etc), backed up programs do not work when restored, they need re-installing. Basically saving anything under my documents should do. Your recovery disks should work. Any major manufacturer's drive will work. Make sure you get IDE, your machine may not support SATA, and the restore disks may not work correctly if you change the type of drive.

Answer 3

some info for you to read
Setting up a new hard drive
1. install the new drive
2. Load xp
3. partion C: half size of disk
4. select English
5. select Keyboard
6. delete us keyboard if not us
7. Private leave co blank
8. Admin for first user
9. Skip network

After installed:
1. Identify
a. Chipset
b. Video
c. Sound
d. South Bridge (PCI card management)
e. Download from their manufactures site latest drivers
f. Usually the site is the www. Manufact name.com.tw (Taiwan)
2. Windows Update – Custom
a. Select some drivers but do not overwrite the three a,b,c, drivers from above.
3. set up D: (the other half of the new drive)
4. Move (not copy) my documents to D:

Partition the Hard drive – reasons
========================
Firstly C drive is compulsory for the Operating System (XP) (Vista), and you install all your programs on C drive.

D drive is made for YOUR files.

What you do is MOVE my documents to D drive.

When you download music, videos, pictures from your camera or make any MS Office documents or save emails, you save it on D drive.

The reason for this is to do with
1. Hard drive failure - usually a failed hard drive will not boot, but can often be seen when hooked up as a slave.
So when you get your new hard drive up and running, you can copy D drive from your old to your new. You haven’t lost anything.

2. Virus. Normally virus are programmed to infect C drive. If you get a bad virus all that has to be done is format the C drive partition then re install you OS and programs from disks.
You haven’t lost your personal stuff because its on D drive.

3. Scanning your C drive for virus or spyware. These malware programs live on C drive. It is not necessary to scan D drive. It is a lot quicker to scan a small partition than a large hard drive.


Now you can see the above is compromised by the fact that programs get updates and lots of programs are installed from the net. Therefore if you had to wipe out C drive it be hard to get it back to how it was.
To remedy this we use Norton Ghost to image C drive and store the Image on D drive.
(Vista requires a different version of Ghost).

If you get a bad virus you just use the Ghost disk to boot up on, then copy the image stored on D drive back over C drive.
It takes less than 30 mins to rebuild C drive.
Also you may have this running on say a 250 gig HDD, and it fails. You buy a new 400 gig HDD and install both into you computer, the failed one as a slave.
Using the ghost disk to boot up on, you partition the 400 C drive to 50 gig and the remaining to D drive. Then you repack C drive from the image. Then Copy your old D drive files to your new one. In a time of less than 1 hour and it’s all running. The image loads all the drivers, OS everything.

Then you update new images of C drive every few months so that the one on D drive is not to out of date.


On XP and Vista you create C drive to a maximum of 50 gig. It doesn’t need to be any bigger, however if you have a Hard drive less than 100 gig then limit C drive to 30 gig.

Answer 4

You should be able to use any IDE drive, as 200GB works on your PC already.

As to recovery, the CD you created should just boot off and restore a fresh copy of MCE.

Answer 5

Yes the recovery disk will put the computer back to the state you made the disk. but you will lose everything.

Can you get into safe mode? you can try to repair it there, by using registry software etc.

Answer 6

Did you fill your hard drive, was it efficient enough for you? Just get the same thing, it worked fine right? Did you try ghosting your image to another drive?