Hard Drive Failure

Yep I got one of those messages at startup that says "Hard Drive Failure May Be imminent. Please backup your data and have it replaced immediately." Although my pc still booted fine I know my drive will fail out on me any moment. So I was wondering if theres an easy way to back up 5 gigs of files. Also I have 2 drives on this pc, but my other drive has my recovery data to restore my pc to brand new. How can I backup my data if it wont let me access that drive.

 

Well I got a full warranty on the pc so I can get the hard drive replaced in no time. But any way to back up my 4.32 gigs of files so that I wont have to redownload.

 

That recovery drive won't do you much good since it's simply another partition on the same drive. Drive failure means you loose everything, including the recovery partition.
The best solution is to back up on DVD or a lot of CD's.

 

Actually the recovery data is on another separate drive, and my OS is on my drive thats about to fail. If my C: drive fails, then my D drive, which has the recovery partiiton, wont. I got 5.5 gigs of free space left on the recovery drive, and I wonder if I can utilize this free space to backup my files. When my new drive arrives, I can simply reinstall the OS using the D drive files.

 

That would be the first time i see a second hard drive which contains ONLY the recovery data, and won't let you access it. Are you sure? Aren't there any usable partitions on that drive? Different partitions are handled as different drives by explorer, but they are on the same disk.
Verify this via the Disk Manager. Open compmgmt.msc and select Disk Management. You should see all your disks now, each of which divided into partitions. If there is indeed a second drive, tell me how it is partitioned.

 

I dont see the Disk Management option. I get this when I type compmgmt.msc.

 

It should be under 'Storage'

 

And here is what happens when I click on my D: drive.

 

Under Storage it says "There are no items to show in this view"

 

HP restore partitions are typically kept on the same drive. I know it's stupid, but it's true. You can, however, burn the recovery data to DVD.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/genericDocument?lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&docname=bph08097

So the only way to backup is to burn to DVD...

 

If it went missing, you can try running diskmgmt.msc
This will get you there too.

 

I created this disk set a while ago, but I have lost the case in which I kept this set. So thats not an option.

 

Plus I dont wanna burn 10 diiferent cds as thats a waste of time and cds. There has to be a better way.

 

Rewritable DVD or another HD, internal or external doesn't matter. But i guess you don't have a spare. USB memory this size is way too expensive. Can't think of anything better than optical media, sorry...

 

I found my HP Recovery Disks, now what I need to find out is if I can use that second drive, delete the contents, and backup my data there.

 

That 'second drive' is a partition on the drive that is going to fail. If you backup there you will lose all your data when the drive dies! Buy a second hard drive or use optical media.
If you really want this, you can delete the recovery partition and create a new data partition in its place. Follow the instructions in the 'Removing the System Recovery Partition' and 'Creating a New Data Partition' sections on this page.

 

yea I bought a second drive and now my data is all backed up.
I always thought my Recovery Partition was on a separate drive lol.
Thanks for the help.