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need to back up a hd

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Freedom Kira:
Yeah, I thought that would happen, though I didn't expect it to happen when you were copying the C: drive to your backup drive. Best bet here is to boot up with a Linux Live CD, and perform the copy there. Or spend some time going through your drive and only copy files you need. =P Chances are the files that are in use are Windows files.

By the way, when you try to copy Documents and Settings, you may be being restricted to your own account's files. If there are multiple accounts on the system, you shouldn't be able to access the My Documents folder of any of the other accounts.

To get a Linux Live CD, Google Ubuntu. Download the 32-bit ISO (latest 11.10 is fine) and burn it to a CD or DVD using Imgburn. Pop that into your laptop, restart, mash F12 during startup, and select boot from CD from the boot menu. When it asks you, select "Try Ubuntu without installing."

I've worked with Dells before (admittedly not XPS systems though) and never had a problem pulling the drive out without touching anything else. It's a very stupid design to bury the drive deep inside, if that is really what they did. Having to remove the keyboard to perform any other work is true though (but Dell keyboards are usually relatively easy to remove).

As for vacuuming, you should avoid that. Vacuums can build up static charges very quickly, which can critically damage your hardware if placed in just the right position. There are no records of this ever having happened AFAIK, but better safe than sorry. It is better to blast air in (can of compressed air, or an air compressor turned air gun) than to suck air out.

kenshin-dono:
thanks for the help guys. I got fed up with it and just copied everythihng manually folder by folder. It took forever, and the screen started getting kinda distorted near the end but it worked. I went in and copied everything untill i got an error. then found that file deselected it and kept going. It took forever

Also running Hitatchis crappy backup program too just for good measure. I should have just about everything except for some files that seemed to be about user settings and windows files. Well i hope i have everything i need because i gotta stress the gfx card so it can fully crap out again then send it out


--- Quote from: Freedom Kira on January 12, 2012, 07:12:37 AM ---As for vacuuming, you should avoid that. Vacuums can build up static charges very quickly, which can critically damage your hardware if placed in just the right position. There are no records of this ever having happened AFAIK, but better safe than sorry. It is better to blast air in (can of compressed air, or an air compressor turned air gun) than to suck air out.

--- End quote ---

I actually heard blowing air in is bad because it actually blows the stuff INTO the system, whereas vacuuming it pulls it out.

Is it really bad to use a vacum on the ports? I do it on my 360 and ps3 from time to time too. It ake the hose attachment off and press the bare hose up against it. If thats bad what should i do? Buy an electronics vacuum?

^_^x KD

Freedom Kira:
If you do it regularly, blasting air is perfectly fine, since the dust doesn't get a chance to collect into huge chunks. If you let dust get caked everywhere, though, you might get some dust lodged in some crevice if you're not careful. You just need to pick where to blast your air well, so that the air can come out somewhere on the other side, so that you push dust out the other side instead of pressing it into a corner. In general, computers don't have many of these corners (for lack of a better term), so it's generally a good idea to blast air.

Again, there haven't been actual reports of people screwing up hardware with static shocks from a vacuum, but just be warned on that. I don't think "electronics vacuums" exist. =P

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