What should I copy from my failing hard drive first?

    My replacement hard drive has been shipped and I suspect it will arrive on either Friday or Saturday. I'm having trouble deciding what files I should copy over first once the drive arrives, because I want to get as much data off the failing hard drive as possible. I'm not sure how long the drive will last (at the moment I can still access my files normally but the drive is making loud clicking sounds and stuttering occasionally).


    Here's what I've got on that drive as far as I know:

    • Macrium Reflect Images - I've captured multiple installations of Windows over the past few months and put them into Macrium Reflect images, and I know for a fact that one of the images is not available anywhere else.
    • Several recorded Discord calls (TF-related) dating back to June 2019 and going as late as early this year.
    • Manual backups where I've moved folders from my computer onto the drive without compressing them (backups are separated by date and hardware). These folders vary from Pictures (such as old screenshots) to Documents to old Minecraft installations.

    Which should I go for first?

    It's poor logistics to store that much sensitive information on a storage medium which you are indexing every day, being your computer's hard drive. You should be storing this information in the cloud, or consider investing in an external high-capacity hard drive which is better suited to your needs.

    @fssp#2445 Not sure how an external drive would be any better? It can still fail as it's just a standard hard drive in a caddy..?

    Wild1145

    Network Owner at TotalFreedom

    Managing Director at ATLAS Media Group Ltd.

    Founder & Owner at MastodonApp.UK

    @wild1145#2455 Because, as inferring from this post, the information is currently being stored on a drive which hosts the original poster's operating system and commonly indexed system files. A disk's lifespan is decreased with frequent reading/writing, and when you are storing sensitive information, the best way to combat the frequent transferring of that data is to care for the health of the storage medium on which it is stored.


    "External high-capacity hard drive [...] suited to your needs" refers to a disk which is designed for archival purposes thus placing an importance on reliability and high capacity instead of fast read/write speeds, wake/seek times, et cetera.

    @videogamesm12#2469 Whether or not the drive is internal or external to the machine is not relevant to the matter of selecting a grade of storage medium best suited for long-term archival means.

    I'd recommend using a Linux live CD for your data recovery, because if you were to run your OS natively on it, things such as page file and Windows update could cause some strain on your disk. Provided you aren't using bitlocker you can use a live USB to move your data to a separate storage medium with minimal hastle. Most Linux distos ship with NTFS drivers for this kind of purpose.
    I wish you the best of luck!

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