# Chkdsk found bad sectors. Should I replace my Hard Drive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 12, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chkdsk-found-bad-sectors-should-i-replace-my-hard-drive/528793 "2010-02-12T23:58:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Bbusyb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bbusyb/32/4580_2.png) [@Bbusyb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bbusyb)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chkdsk-found-bad-sectors-should-i-replace-my-hard-drive/528793/21 "2010-02-14T13:04:14Z")
> [@microcontrolled](#): > > Also, drachillix, thank you for your suggestion about acronis. I’ve bookmarked their page, but since it’s a 10 day trial, I’ll wait until I’m ready to make the switch before I get started with imaging the drive. My install of Win 7 is still pretty new so I wasn’t really looking forward to flattening and re-installing just yet 🙂 If you clone your Hard drive, you won’t need to reinstall anything as it would be a complete duplicate of your current install, just on a new disk. I did that last year when I moved from an older 100Gb disk to a new 500GB disk when the older disk was giving me a lot of errors, and cloning the drive, including all the partions and expanding them as I wanted was pretty easy. While I used Ghost, Arconis is also very good, and is probably easier to use. ---
**Author:** ![microcontrolled](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@microcontrolled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/microcontrolled)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chkdsk-found-bad-sectors-should-i-replace-my-hard-drive/528793/22 "2010-02-20T12:28:40Z")
> [@Bbusyb](#): > > If you clone your Hard drive, you won’t need to reinstall anything as it would be a complete duplicate of your current install, just on a new disk. > > I did that last year when I moved from an older 100Gb disk to a new 500GB disk when the older disk was giving me a lot of errors, and cloning the drive, including all the partions and expanding them as I wanted was pretty easy. > > While I used Ghost, Arconis is also very good, and is probably easier to use. Just to wrap this thread up, I thought I should report on how the hard drive swap went. Following directions I found online for my particular laptop, I pulled the old hard drive to check its speed (5400 rpm), and its communication method (serial ATA). I bought a replacement drive with the same specs, but more space for $60 AUD. With the old drive back in my laptop, I used the trial version of Acronis, as drachillix suggested, to create a backup image of my old drive onto an external USB drive. I then used Acronis to create a bootable CD. I pulled the old HD back out of the laptop and this time replaced it with the new drive. With the new HD in the laptop, the bootable CD in the CD drive, and my external HD connected via usb, I booted up the computer and used Acronis on the CD to copy over the backup image from the external HD to the new internal HD. The whole process was smooth, and a fraction of the headache a sudden loss of HD functionality would have been, even with my data backed up (but not imaged) as it was. How does the saying go? An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? Thank you again for your help! ---
**Author:** ![old\_joe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/58956e/32.png) [@old\_joe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/old_joe)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chkdsk-found-bad-sectors-should-i-replace-my-hard-drive/528793/23 "2010-02-20T16:12:49Z")
> [@microcontrolled](#): > > This morning Chkdsk found and repaired several bad sectors on my primary hard drive. My computer appears to be running well at this point. Should I preemptively replace my hard drive when I can find time for it, or should I wait until the Hard Drive totally kicks the bucket? For my clients I always say swap it out. (new HDD) for my kids home machine I keep a good backup and wait for it to go. It could be quite a while it could be today. FWIW on my media server I would swap it ASAP. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chkdsk-found-bad-sectors-should-i-replace-my-hard-drive/528793.md?page=1)