Hard Drive Replaced With Zero Data Loss

April 20, 2015

Last Monday I told you SMART Warning Predicts Imminent Hard Disk Failure. A week later, I’m happy to report my laptop is healthy again, most all of my software is installed and all data is safely back where it was earlier.

The biggest delay in the whole process was waiting for the replacement drive. I ordered the new drive on Monday and it didn’t arrive until Saturday. Once in hand, it took less than fifteen minutes to install the replacement drive.

As I suggest in Setting Up a Windows Computer From Scratch, I always partition my drives into three drive letters. So as part of installing Windows on the new drive, I created the three partitions and installed Windows on the C drive. I then immediately installed ZoneAlarm Security Suite so I would be safe when I went online to download updates.

After Windows was installed and updated, I started installing software on the D drive. Some of the software was fairly large so this process took some time. Luckily for me, I just had to click a few buttons and walk away while the installers did their job.

Lastly, I had to restore my data. As I’ve suggested many times, my data is all stored on the E drive and backed up nightly using GoodSync on a NAS drive. All I needed to do was copy the data back from the NAS drive to the E drive and I was all ready to go.

If you plan for these issues in advance, it is pretty easy to survive a failed drive with minimal hassle and zero data loss.

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Foster D. Coburn III built his first Web site in 1995 and he has been working exclusively in WordPress since 2013. He has used the Divi theme exclusively since 2015. Earlier in his career he was the author of 13 best-selling books on CorelDRAW and has been a contributor to numerous technology and graphics-related magazines. Foster has taken many projects, including this Web site, from the early design stage through to a finished piece. He has been a featured speaker at many graphics conferences.