Windows 10: Can I close my laptop during a backup on Windows 10 to an external hard drive?

Can i close my Windows 10 laptop during a backup to an external hard drive?

:)

 

unrecognised external hard drive on Windows 10

Since you already reinstalled the drivers of the External Hard Drive, let's run the
Hardware and Devices troubleshooter as it can resolve your concern. You can do that by following these steps:

• 
  Press the Start button.
  
• 
  Type and select Troubleshooting.
  
• 
  Click on View all on the left panel.
  
• 
  Select and run the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter.
  

If the Hardware and Devices troubleshooter doesn’t resolve your concern, we suggest that you change the letter of the External Hard Drive. You can do that by following these steps:

• 
  Press the Start button.
  
• 
  Type and select Control panel.
  
• 
  Select System and Security.
  
• 
  Select Administrative Tools, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Double-click Computer Management, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Select Disk Management that is located under
  Storage in the left pane.
  
• 
  Right click on the External Hard Drive that is not showing on the File Explorer.
  
• 
  Select Change letter and network path, and a new window will appear.
  
• 
  Select Change, and choose the letter that you want for the External Hard Drive.
  

After changing the letter of the External Hard Drive, we suggest that you reboot your laptop for the changes to take effect.



Let us know how it goes.



Regards.

 

Free hard drive backup/restore program?

I am looking for a free (freeware) program that will back up and restore a hard drive. I'm looking to clone a few external hard drives. If the program will backup the used space instead of the whole drive this will be awesome! Thanks for any suggestions.

 

Converting an internal hard drive to an external backup

I want to remove a 3.5 inch internal hard drive from a problematic (dying) desktop and use it as an external backup for a different PC via a USB 2 connection. How do I prepare this hard drive for removal and re-use?

My (few) friends frequently tell me that I know only enough to be dangerous. You folks are apparently very knowledgeable individuals, and I would very much appreciate any assistance you can provide. Perhaps you could just point me in the right direction for reference material, tutorials, etc.

The hard drive in question is a 100GB Seagate ST3100011A (Barracuda 7200.7). According to Seagate's instructions on how to interpret their model numbers, the drive has a 2MB cache and an ATA (IDE?) interface.

I've found a fairly highly-rated external enclosure (Rosewill RX355-U) from a reputable retailer that seems to fit my needs, but I am open to any alternatives you might suggest.

I am completely ignorant as to what I need to do to the hard drive before removal from its sick host. Caches, partitions and the like are totally Greek to me.

I assume the Windows XP operating system installed on the drive will have to be removed at some point in the process, but there is data on the drive that I would like to preserve if possible. The PC for which the hard drive will serve as a backup is running Windows 7.