grumpyolddude

*did a search... didn't see my answer*

I'm running Win XP Home. Athlon XP, 256 meg ram. My C drive is 20gig WD, F drive is 40gig WD. I boot the C drive for non-internet access, the F drive for internet access (I know it's weird, but that's the way it is). The whole set up is 2 years in service, so I don't begrudge any parts for wearing out.

My 40 gig is dying... it will freeze unpredictably, and upon reboot, the mobo won't recognize it. After a few minutes of shutdown, it boots fine, but I get a message stating that the system has just recovered from a serious error. The system does not run excessively hot... @50 celcius at the processor, @30 celcius system temp average, but it seems that the hard drive is overheating (?) and is in it's death throes (no unusual noise, though).

I've decided that I need to replace that 40 gig drive and I wish to exactly duplicate my current system arrangement. Back in my Win98 days, I used DiskCopy with success, but the version I own doesn't work with WinXP. Do I need something similar for this operation, or does XP have a suitable built-in function?

I don't care that I come off as a wimpish newbie, but detailed advice would be greatly appreciated. I've built, rebuilt, torn down and assembled a hundred systems, but this fix has me nervous. It would be nearly impossible to replace everything on that drive and the wife and kids would .... well their reaction would not be very pleasant. Thanks, everyone!

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"Regret can be a harder pill to swallow than failure .With failure you at least know you gave it a chance..." David Howard