My 1 Tb internal is dying. windows 7 backup sucks

[TrogL]

I've got all the data moved across to a 1 Tb external USB drive so that's not the problem.

The problem is, when it dies, good (expletive) luck getting Windows to recognize its replacement.

I'm going out tonight to buy a new 1 Tb SATA drive.

In UNIX, all I'd have to do is tar the data across to the other drive, umount both filesystems, change the (v)fstab entry, remount the good drive and I'd be good to go. Probably wouldn't even need to reboot.

Windows thinks the existing failing drive is L:. It thinks the USB drive is M: It's going to assign another drive letter to the new drive and be damned if it's going to let me reassign the drive letter (at least any way I've been able to discover).

So I've been trying to run Windows backup on the faulty drive. The only way it will let me do it (that I've been able to discover) is to back up the entire box. I don't need C: drive backed up. It's fine. By the time it gets around to attempt to back up L: drive, either the box has decided it's time to go into sleep mode (despite it being disabled) or the process has run so long, Windows thinks it's failed and stops paying attention to it, or something else. Who knows? Lacking any sort of non-GUI diagnostics, it's impossible to tell.

So, how do I got about swapping out a still-readable hard drive (it just won't write) with a new one without having to manually reassign all the app locations, hack the registry or other completely unecessary voodoo to get this working?

[MyNameGoesHere]

1. ever heard of Robocopy or now known as richcopy?

And have you tried assigning drive letter though the disk management snap-in?

[canetoad]

2. You can change all the others

but not the drive with the OS on it.

TrogL, I'd be doing a fresh install of Windows with only the primary drive connected.

[MyNameGoesHere]

3. He don't seem to need c: drive backed up

so why is that pertinent? And yes you can change the drive letter if it has OS on it. You really don't need a drive letter period if you know what you're doing.

[TrogL]

4. All fixed - apparently

Put in a new 1.5 Tb drive and copied all the data from the USB drive. The old 1 Tb internal has apparently finally packed it in 'cause it didn't show up and the computer didn't bitch about it.

Computer's running like the wind. I'm wondering how long this drive was a problem and I didn't know.

Talked to the store and they're going to replace it under warranty.

[TrogL]

5. Got the drive up one last time to erase the old *ahem* data

Got the data off, tried one last format and it barfed 9/10 of the way through.

I suspect there was a problem lurking with this drive all along. It started acting up right after I copied about 50 gb of data, taking the drive to a new level of fullness.

Probably going to take it to the store tonight, maybe buy myself a new video card for a birthday present. Most of my steam games are whining.

[TrogL]

6. Oh, and I never did get Windows backup to successfully work

I figure after three days of waiting, it's time to try something else.

Paragon Backup did the job in about three hours.

Go figure.