Need To Create System Image...

[TylerL520]

My hard drive in my laptop is failing and I desperately need to create a system image on my external hard drive. When I boot my pc normally it turns on fine but within about 5 minutes of being on it freezes and restarts by itself, so every time I attempt to create a system image on my external hard drive the computer freezes and shuts off by itself way before the process is complete. When I run the laptop in safe mode, it runs fine and never freezes or turns itself off, so I thought I was going to be ok and just create the system image while I was in safe mode. Now I realized I either can't find where to do it in safe mode or I'm just not able to do it in safe mode. So is there anyway I could create a system image in safe mode or some how else? Any other suggestions of what I should do to avoid losing everything?? Any help would be appreciated!

 

[ss202sl]

Is your hard drive really failing, or do you have a windows corruption or visus/malware? If it runs in safe mode, it doesn't seem like a HDD issue.

 

[inzone]

The laptops usually come with a hidden partition that contains recovery software and a system image so if you go to the tech support page of the brand of laptop you have and find instructions on how to access the hidden partition then you can either attempt a temporary fix of the hard drive that will allow you to have time to copy to an external drive or there may be an option where you can get a new hard drive and clone it without going into Windows.

 

[TylerL520]

Is your hard drive really failing, or do you have a windows corruption or visus/malware? If it runs in safe mode, it doesn't seem like a HDD issue.

I thought this same thing it didn't make sense to me, I have an HP envy laptop and when I run HP's built in system diagnostics it tells me "Hard Disk 1 failure. Failure ID: 94PMX3-5GU69J-XD6U3A-60WC03." So I assumed it was telling me my hard drive is failing, but I went ahead anyway and ran a couple virus/malware scans and 2 threats were found that I got rid of and I'm still having the same problem so I dont believe its that. How would I know if I have windows corruption?

 

[inzone]

Use the recovery software that is on the hidden partition on the hard drive. If you go to the HP support site you can get insrtuctions on how to use it.

 

[TylerL520]

Use the recovery software that is on the hidden partition on the hard drive. If you go to the HP support site you can get insrtuctions on how to use it.

Well, I did that and in the recovery manager it allowed me to either recover/restore my computer, run CHKDSK, or backup. I ran CHKDSK and I'm pretty sure it passed it didnt tell me any errors or anything, and I was going to try the backup but the backup it offers doesn't backup applications or anything like that, just music/pictures/videos mainly so I decided not to do that now. What should my next step be?

 

[inzone]

If the hard drive passed chkdsk then there is a good chance that there may not be anything wrong with the hard drive so the next step would be to do a repair of Windows and that option should be there on that hidden partition.
If you run recover/restore then your going to restore the computer to fasctory condition and erase all of your information. So before doing that you need to do the back up and try to get as much personal info and files as you can saved. Then the applications will have to be worked on while Windows is open and maybe it can stay up long enough for you to get an application saved one at a time. You don't have any of the install discs for any of the applications ? If your applications came with the computer then they will be restored to the condition that they were at when you got the computer.

 

[GHzPC]

Windows 7 Ultimate has a utility to create a System Image including OS and programs. You just need a separate drive to store it on.

 

[TylerL520]

Update: Found out after all the time I spent trying to understand why my hard drive was failing, turns out I fried my a/c adapter. I've had no power where I am due to hurricane sandy and I attempted to charge my laptop off of my stepfather's generator and it fried my charger. So I guess my computer wasn't getting a proper power supply and it was causing the hard drive to act up and think it was failing, when running off of the battery and using a different charger everything is perfect! Thanks for the help everyone, atleast now I can backup normally and not have this occur in the future lol.

 

[TylerL520]

Best answer selected by TylerL520.