I feel that at least you don't need to fret too much about drivers overall. It isn't like a fresh install of Windows (7) won't work for you until you hunt down dozens of drivers for various hardware components.

Most probably the PC will work fine after a clean Windows installation, and then the first driver update you might want to look into is the graphics (GPU) drivers.

Then, later, if you feel like it, you can try to upgrade also various other drivers, like with the utilities that were mentioned here. I don't feel this should be very high on your priority list, just do it when you feel like it.

Ps. On the Acer laptop, I did install Intel's own driver utility which is supposed to scan your whole system and check if any Intel chipset drivers needs updates. At first scan after a clean Windows 10 installation, it didn't find any Intel drivers to update, which I found odd. Only after I manually updated the Intel HD 620 GPU graphics drivers, then on the second scan it finally noticed that hey there is an Intel HD GPU in the system.

No idea why it didn't say anything about the other Intel chipset drivers, USB drivers and such... Seems to me that intel driver scanning utility is pretty useless. I'll need to try if those other utilities mentioned here are any better.

Yeah, I do agree :)

This kind of utilities provided by the constructor with your OS felt mainly useless to me : they never found anything to update, on my laptop (ASUS), my pc (Packard Bell), and even my previous laptop (ASUS). So I gave up using them, doing updates manually if it was needed.

I hope I will have better luck :P

A small question : is there a way to see if there wasn't errors during copy/paste operation of the files ?
Copying seems to run not badly (between 4 to 4,8Mo/s for big files it seems!), but sometimes I hear clearly a single quick "Tick", and I'm afraid it could damage the file it was currently copying.

If you had 900GB of data on the dying disk, then it's huge, and you are right to avoid cloning it. The cloned image is zipped and it would be smaller, but it would still end up being huge.

So you managed to get the hdd working on your laptop, and you're backing up your data? That is great!

Avoid restarting the laptop until you managed to save everything you wouldn't mind loosing, should the disk no longer work after the restart.

Yep, when I see the current copy speed, it's enough to try to backup, but doing everything in one move... seems a bit risky and would be very long. I'm doing backup folder by folder, trying to backup them depending of what I consider the level of priority. But I'll remember that tool, it can be very useful !

Yeah ! :D My first hardware operation went globally well, and for now I'm lucky enough and am able to (slowly) backup data :)
Yesterday night I preferred to switch everything off : my dying harddrive was heating a bit (~50°C), and my laptop... is old... and was becoming a bit too hot too (it was turned on all the day and partly night, and we're in summer :P) : I wouldn't like that it dies from overheating, it's still very functional & useful in emergency cases ;)
But for now, I'm copying as much as I can, and will do as long as I can. If I see it's becoming really hot, I'll turn everything off : I'm maybe a bit too much optimistic but I have some faith in my dying drive and think it could handle several restart, but I know now that avoiding to restart it is a priority, and I know that if I turn it off, it may very well never turn on again. But I'm looking at the bright side : I can backup data for now, and was able to save some already, I only hope it will keep up this way :)

Yeah it might be that PCs which come with Win10 preloaded, don't necessarily have drivers for older OSes readily available (at least within the installation media). Kinda makes sense because the device may have been designed long after that old OS (e.g. Windows 7) was created.

I've had somewhat similar experiences. When clean-installing Windows 10, it contains all the needed drivers (albeit many may be old versions, especially for the GPU). But for Windows 7 clean installation, something like wifi adapter and such may be missing altogether, and you have to hunt for them elsewhere.

I had the same experience with the Intel Driver Update Utility, it never found any drivers, but that was back in 2013 for me.


Yup, you need to find the USB3 drivers because Win7 doesn't have native support for them - it will work as USB2 only.


Not unless you have the checksum for those files. I use HashCheck Shell Extension for that.

If they were damaged, depending on the file types you'll get different kinds of errors. Media files will playback with distorsions and artifacts, may be incomplete or not playback at all. Archives will give errors when extracting, programs and installers probably won't start at all.

If it gets copied without an error, then it is most probably ok (unless the original was already corrupted for some reason). I guess there is chance some bit goes the wrong way during the copying process, but in my experience it is very rare usually (if there is no apparent error).

There are utilities like dvdsig and rhash which let you verify that files (also copied ones) are still ok... but for them you first need to scan the files on the old hard drive (to create checksums for all files) before you can then verify the copied files on the new hard drive against those same checksums. I suggest you don't do such extra work on your old hard drive, but just copy everything you can from it ASAP.

Also, if some files are already corrupted on the old hard drive due to e.g. some filesystem error or whatever, then these utilities won't help anyway because they will just create checksums for those already corrupted files.

For already copies files, you can check the integrity for many types of files (but not all):

- all compressed files (.zip, .rar, ,7z etc. etc.), you can test them with a compression utility, like 7-zip.
- same goes to ISO disc images (with the .iso suffix)
- I think many program installers (created with innosetup etc.) can be checked too, e.g. with the innoextract utility. If they extract ok, then the installer is ok.

That is why I generally like archiving files into compressed .7z files and such. Besides saving space due to compression, it also lets me check that those compressed files are ok, by testing them with compression utilities.


Oh, I forgot one option you'd have: TeraCopy. If you want extra confirmation, you'd might want to install it on the PC which you use copying files. TeraCopy checks each copied or moved file against the original (using md5 checksums I think, or maybe it was "merely" CRC32) to make sure they are identical. Not sure if it is worth it for you to re-copy everything again with TeraCopy...

http://www.codesector.com/teracopy

But as said, if some file was corrupted already on the old hard drive, this utility will not fix it nor reveal it is corrupted. It just tries to make sure nothing bad happens during the file copy/move process.

Doesn't even any Windows Update provide them?

Hmmm, maybe that is then why I haven't had problems with USB 3.0 external hard drives anymore, as they work only on the (slower but more reliable) USB 2.0 speeds... :D

Are the USB 3.0 drivers from Intel, or are they PC vendor specific?

I'm not sure 'cause I never install drivers from Windows update. I remember seeing drivers only for Intel integrated graphics and maybe chipset.

Should be from the USB Controller's manufacturer, usually Intel and AMD because are integrated in the chipset. But some motherboards have extra USB controllers from Realtek, Qualcomm, Resnesas and others which I don't know.
I guess Windows 8 & 10 have an universal driver for USB3 from Microsoft.

Edit:
Also USB3 provide more current, 900 mA instead of 500 mA on USB2, which is beneficial for external drives powered only from USB.

I have an USB3 Hub connected to an USB3 port on the laptop and if I connect two external drives to it, one will stop to function properly. I haven't tested much, but my guess is that is not enough current/power for both of them.

I might be wrong, but from what I recall, USB powered drives need around 700-800 mA to work at max capabilities. They work on USB2 at lesser performance, that is why some older USB2 drives came with USB Y-cable.

Okay. I hope things went smoothly. I suppose I won't really know before having backed up everything :P
I'm thinking of finally keeping this dying hdd in the external case as long as it will last and without touching it as much as possible, this way it will may be permit me to access again the files if I see that my backup has some issue.
I'll certainly order my new harddrive tonight or tomorrow. For the checksum check I'll maybe see that in the end of the backup : my hdd is still slow, and I'll try first to backup things, and after to see if they're fine :)

Okay, I'll wait first that everything is backed up !
Putting important things in compressed files is pretty smart even if it needs some more work :P
Well, I tested several big archives while there wasn't file copying : seems ok for the few I checked ! I know that doesn't mean everything is perfect, but at least it makes me think I'm not simply backing up only corrupted data :)

Thanks ! But indeed, I won't copy again the things I already backed up, I still have a lot of things to save first (transfer rate is slooow). And I it can slow more the copy process... I prefer to avoid. Maybe I'll do a final checksum on each folder after everything copied : it's may be the safiest way to first do the backup.

Thanks for the answers :)

Sounds complicated. How do you identify precisely who can provide the driver ? With instructions on the page you indacted me here ?
What is USB Y-Cable use ?

Small question :
I'm planning to buy this harddrive through this store : this one) It's in my price range (less than 70-80€), and my dying hdd was 2To so I would like something similar. And anything I shouldn't forget before buying ?

The blues are decent drives, but be aware it's* a 5400 RPM so will be somewhat slower on read/writes.

*edit* Just wanted to clarify that I mean this particular drive is a 5400 RPM. WD does make 7200RPM blues as well.

It seems I'm a bit late to the party.

@ Splatch: If you want I can assist you in getting your system up and running again. Add me in GOG chat if you want and I will guide you through.

(I do PC repairs for a living and will gladly help you save some money)

Yes, you follow that article and google for the Hardware Ids - should find the manufacturer and model.

Something like this.

As GR00T said, buy a 7200 RPM drive. And Western Digital is my prefered choice.

There's a much easier way to install drivers: https://drp.su/en/

It's called DriverPack Solution - A collection of drivers which will automatically detect all hardware in your system and install them in bulk.

It comes in 2 versions -

a) Online version which downloads only the required drivers for your system. (which is the ideal for a one time - once in a while format.

b) Offline version where you download the full 12GB package and contains all the drivers for almost all and any hardware ever released. (This is the version I use on the job, saves us loooooots of time during formats, no more driver hunting).

Note: Just one thing to watch out for is to make sure to disable any software (such as web browsers) that the driverpack might ask you to install along the drivers.