How old was the HDD when it failed? And how often had it been used?
Unknown. I buy all my PCs** used** from eBay, from one particular seller that has the OS pre-installed and pre-activated, so I never have to agree to the TOS, or interact with M$ directly. Yeah, I know M$ is going to get some personal info just by using the OS, but that can be limited. Every PC I have bought from him lasted 3-4 years, so now I know doing a bare-metal/clone copy of the hard drive is essential. I have several new/blank WD 1TB hard drives waiting in my parts-bank, so hopefully I can at least double the usual 3-4 years lifespan. Not sure how many times one can copy a hard drive....if it is like DVDs, not many before it degrades.
like DVDs
Do you mean DVD-RW?
HDDs have no write cycle limit like DVD-RW/flash storage. One sector can be written to indefinitely. The HDD lifespan is just limited by mechanical parts.
In addition, optical media degradation is .
We still have many intact HDDs from the 2000s. But beyond 4 years of age, the risk of failure increases.
When you make a backup copy of a movie from its original DVD, there is some quality loss, but hardly noticeable. If you make a copy of that copy, there is definite loss of video quality. If you make a copy of this copy (I think it's called third generation) the quality is awful. I don't know if that works the same with cloning hard drives. If so, then I would have to make more than one bare-metal copy of the original. I'm getting Déjà vu.....could of sworn I answered this yesterday!
When one copies a movie from its original DVD, there is a slight loss in quality, but not that noticeable. When one copies the copy, the quality loss is very noticeable, and if one then copies that copy the end result is awful. Somewhere around 3rd generation, the DVD becomes worthless to anyone but a rabid collector. I got no idea if that is how backup copies of hard drives work.
So I get my new Win 7 rig set up with all software installed. Do a bare-metal/clone copy to a spare hard drive, and store it safe. In three to four years the original hard drive in my rig goes into meltdown mode. I replace it with the copy. Can I then copy that copy, and repeat the process...in three to four years replace the copy with the copy? If it is like a DVD, then that will not work, as the copy of the copy would be degraded.....and the only option would be to make several copies of the original hard drive. Like I said, i have no idea about this stuff. I've never done a backup of a hard drive, which was my fatal mistake last time, but not one I will be repeating.
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