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Need hard drive backup and windows reboot advice after crash

DDustin
Level 7
Well yesterday when I got up nice an early to start my finals, I opened my computer to see this message-- "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media". I managed to get it started up in safe mode so I could back up my school and media files onto an external hard drive. After that the tech support for my warranty told me to go ahead and try to restart it to see if it would boot up. It did so then I scanned both hard drives which took around 7 hours. I also bought a 500gb WD internal HDD and an external case for it so I can finally back everything up. I also downloaded the Acronis cloning software from WD's site.

Bear with me I'm just learning most of this stuff as I go so my questions might be stupid or obvious. I have 2 drives, the primary is my 256GB SSD that holds my OS and essential programs; The second drive is a 750GB HDD that's split into 2 partitions; 498GB for my media, documents and programs and 199GB for backing up the SSD which is empty.

Now here's where I'm confused. When cloning my drives onto the external do I partition the external to match the computers drives and clone each drive into its own partition? Or can I only clone one drive or do I clone all the drives and partitions and the program mirrors it on its own? Anthything else I should know before starting this?

Also some other basic questions I have... How do I go about updating the external back up? Should I/ can I also clone the OS on the SSD onto the 199gb partition as an additional back up? Also how does rebooting windows and removing all the bloatware factor in to all of this? I've been told that my original problem is likely the OS not the drives, plus I've been needing to do it to resolve other issues as well. How do I actually remove the bloatware?

Another error I get every time I boot up recently also is this...



Do these have anything to do with my issues?

Thanks for your patience with all my questions.

Dustin
G74SX-3DE
I7-2670QM Processor 2.2-3.1GHZ
3x4gb DDR3 1333mhz RAM
Crucial M4 256gb SSD + Stock 750GB 7200.4RPM HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 560M 3GB vram GDDR5 DX11
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25 REPLIES 25

DDustin
Level 7
Email sent, thanks.


Are there any ways to test the mother board?
G74SX-3DE
I7-2670QM Processor 2.2-3.1GHZ
3x4gb DDR3 1333mhz RAM
Crucial M4 256gb SSD + Stock 750GB 7200.4RPM HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 560M 3GB vram GDDR5 DX11

DDustin wrote:
Email sent, thanks.


Are there any ways to test the mother board?


yes, but S.M.A.R.T won't flag a hard drive on controller failure
USA ASUS Reseller
http://www.neteffectspc.com

Shawnnepc wrote:
yes, but S.M.A.R.T won't flag a hard drive on controller failure


Well I'm not getting the SMART warning now since the drive is out but I still have all the problems. It does seem unlikely to me that I would have an HDD and a mother board go bad on a decently new'ish computer.

So you don't think it's the motherboard at all?
G74SX-3DE
I7-2670QM Processor 2.2-3.1GHZ
3x4gb DDR3 1333mhz RAM
Crucial M4 256gb SSD + Stock 750GB 7200.4RPM HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 560M 3GB vram GDDR5 DX11

DDustin
Level 7
Just got a blue screen and then this again. It's probably the 3rd or 4th time since reinstalling Windows.






ETA:
Since posting this I just got the blue screen followed by that screen again. It's getting more frequent.
G74SX-3DE
I7-2670QM Processor 2.2-3.1GHZ
3x4gb DDR3 1333mhz RAM
Crucial M4 256gb SSD + Stock 750GB 7200.4RPM HDD
nVidia GeForce GTX 560M 3GB vram GDDR5 DX11

Rootkits and malware can do that. They sometimes wipe out the bootloader and boot sector, which will cause the BIOS not to be able to find a bootable media. Depending on what programs you are using, you could install LINUX alongside your Windows installation, since that runs its own bootloader (which plays nice with Windows). It also is not affected by Windows viruses (and there are very few LINUX malware threats, due to the security of the operating system).
I am disturbed because I cannot break my system...found out there were others trying to cope! We have a support group on here, if your system will not break, please join!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=16
We now have 178 people whose systems will not break! Yippee! 🙂
LINUX Users, we have a group!
http://rog.asus.com/forum/group.php?groupid=23

DDustin wrote:
Just got a blue screen and then this again. It's probably the 3rd or 4th time since reinstalling Windows.



I never got your e-mail.

I just sent you a PM with my email address and an ALT email in case my exchange server hates your email address for some reason.




ETA:
Since posting this I just got the blue screen followed by that screen again. It's getting more frequent.


Zygomorphic wrote:
Rootkits and malware can do that. They sometimes wipe out the bootloader and boot sector, which will cause the BIOS not to be able to find a bootable media. Depending on what programs you are using, you could install LINUX alongside your Windows installation, since that runs its own bootloader (which plays nice with Windows). It also is not affected by Windows viruses (and there are very few LINUX malware threats, due to the security of the operating system).


That might be a little more advanced than the typical enduser can handle 😉
USA ASUS Reseller
http://www.neteffectspc.com