Falire Imminent

[colin]

When I boot I get a message saying disc failure imminent back up your data
and get a new disc etc. I have windows XP home and a Maxtor 60Gb disc 2
years old

How easy is it to buy a new hard drive, and simply put all my data onto a
brand new disc ( obviously bigger than the current one)

Do I have to re-activate my XP and all the serials etc of my software, and
can I simply "copy" everything as it is with no loss of data

Thank you any ideas appreciated SOON!

 

[Willit]

Just clone your old drive to the new one , most drive
makers have a free program on their site to do it or it
will come with the drive. better hurry !!! You can still
try to use the old drive for a backup.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

Yes, you do need to replace the hard disk. Most new hard disks come with
some type of cloning software to move everything to the new disk. You can't
just copy everything; you need to use the cloning software.

 

[Alex Nichol]

When I boot I get a message saying disc failure imminent back up your data
and get a new disc etc. I have windows XP home and a Maxtor 60Gb disc 2
years old

How easy is it to buy a new hard drive, and simply put all my data onto a
brand new disc ( obviously bigger than the current one)

Do I have to re-activate my XP and all the serials etc of my software, and
can I simply "copy" everything as it is with no loss of data

Start by backing up important data *at once*.

You can then put in the new disk alongside the present one, and 'clone'
it exactly using one of several programs - Drive Image, Ghost, or I use
BootIT NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full
functional trial)

The important thing is as an exact copy - of the whole partition, not on
a file by file basis - and you can then switch over and all will be just
as it was. You will lose one 'vote' in the activation calculation, but
unless you have done several other hardware changes that will not
matter, and even if it did push you over the top, reactivating is not
such a very big hassle - especially if you have SP1 which would give you
three days to get on the net to do it there