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I have dual-boot but i am unable to boot into windows. I booted into Ubuntu and it showed my hard disk is failing soon. The other partitions are now read-only. Would re-installing Windows 10 fix some of the drive issues and allow me to use it for maybe 6 more months? What's the best way to backup data from a failing read-only hard disk?

sinisteraadi
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3 Answers3

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Would re-installing Windows 10 fix some of the drive issues?

Warning: Do not write to a failing hard drive as this makes it more likely to fail sooner.

What's the best way to backup data from a failing read-only hard disk?

Please read How do I recover lost/inaccessible data from my storage device?, which is our canonical question for data recovery.

The answers there give detailed instructions for various different scenarios.

DavidPostill
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It showed my hard disk is failing soon.

No, I do not think so at all. Windows 10 does not repair hardware like this. So I suggest you replace the hard drive now. I think you will find hard drives to be reasonably priced

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You should not install Windows on any hard drive.

If you told me your hard drive was brand new I would still suggest getting rid of it (as an OS drive) unless it was the year 2007.

It is the year 2019, soon it will be the year 2020. An SSD large enough to install any version of windows cost 20 USD brand new (not on sale).

A hard drives only purpose is to store large files you want to lose. If you store Terabytes then yes a Hard Drive will be cheaper, but it's not as cheap as you think, because you need at least 2 or 3 to have the reliability of any SSD so the cost/return is diminishing rapidly.

The amount of time you will waste in extended loading times and inevitable data recovery will well exceed the $20 USD of a brand new SSD.

Checklist

  1. You do not care if you lose all of your data.
  2. You do not care if you have to often wait unnecessarily for your computer to load and have decreased performance in many common operations.
  3. You would rather waste hours of time rather than spend $20.

If you say yes to all three then you definitely should re-install Windows 10 on your failing hard drive. I recommend using it to store large files you do not care about losing or perhaps giving it to your worst enemy to install his OS on.

CodeCamper
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