Windows 10: Hard drive is failing, is there a way to copy Windows 10 OS?

I just checked that my hard drive is failing. Fortunately, I can still use it at this moment and backed up everything, but there's one thing I want to back up which I don't know how to. If I were to buy a new hard drive, is there a way I could use my Win10 OS , which is registered on my old hard drive, to my new one? I got the Win10 upgrade for free. I don't really have the cash to spend another $100 for the Win10 OS if I replace my old hard drive.

:)

 

is there a way to copy and paste

on the dash is there a way to copy and paste? i want to copy a videos link and put it into the medias player url is there a way to do it?

 

is there a way to copy and paste

I use Vito CopyPaste on my HTC S620 smartphone, a variant of the Dash. ir works great and is available as a free download
here.

 

Using Macrium Reflect or anything similar, after making a usb or dvd boot [for recovery purposes], make a full image of your OS partition onto any trusted external media. Install the new HD, remove the problematic HD, Restore the OS partition onto the replacement HD. Now, that's all I know; there have been threads about folks who, after cloning or full imaging, from source onto target, the target HD will not boot. Others here will have to help you with that if you run across that problem.

 

Cloning a Failed HDD will import any problems you are having now. There are probably bad sectors on the HDD with files residing on them that are corrupted.
It's better to use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool to download a fresh copy of Windows 10 to install on your New HDD.

 

I second this post. When doing the install and you get to screen where it asks for a product key, just hit skip or I don't have one. It will automatically activate once you go on the Internet.

 

Well here's a tool that's useful, thanks. I tried the Backup and Restore thing, but it gives me an error (new bad clusters found something) when creating a backup on my external HDD. Does this tool create a fresh Win10 OS to use on my new hard drive?

 

Yes it does exactly that. You can do clean install or you can use it as repair/upgrade disk. You don't have to activate windows again as you are not changing motherboard, just follow the part about skipping entering activation numbers.

 

That's good news. I'm currently running Seatools to see if it can somehow fix the bad sectors on my HDD, but I'm on the verdict of buying a new one.

 

There's no real fix for hardware induced bad sectors (head crash etc.). All a program can "fix" is to mark them as bad and eventually move data to spare space. even if fixed that doesn't mean new ones would develop soon.
On the other hand SW can cause some bad sectors too and that can eventually be fixed. They usually happen when there was power or connection loss during some heavy writing.

 

I only suggested making a full image because thread starter indicated no problems with the OS - yet. If there are bad sectors within the OS area, then my suggestion becomes moot -- for the reason mentioned earlier - cloning a source HD containing bad sectors will reproduce those errors onto a replacement HD. I do hope thread starter is able to get data folders and files off of the problematic HD, I'm sure there are at least a few data folders and files.

addendum: I noticed that I earlier posted an incomplete!
See underlined above -- fixed the flaw, hopefully.

 

I just finished a 2 hour long test on my drive and Seatools repaired (or rather, move) the bad sectors. CrystalDiskInfo stated that the status of my drive is at caution and the description says "Reallocated Sectors Count". So the program moved those bad sectors to another empty space, does that mean this is only a band aid solution?

Meaning to say, when you back up files from a dying hard drive, it can affect the new one? Like some sort of virus?

 

Yeah, band aid at best. If they were soft error bad sectors they wouldn't be relocated. If you manage to back drive up, any damaged files will still be damaged but there would be no repercussions to new system.

 

If the OP is lucky the soft error bad sectors might be repaired with running chkdsk /r in an admin command prompt and rebooting to start it. Then create a system image, and reimage to new disk. Note: your new disk needs to be same size or larger than the system partition(C or disk, to reimage to it.

 

If that's the case then I should really get a new hard drive to prevent further problems if my hard drive fails on me sooner than expected. I have to be prepared for the worst since this kind of stuff happened to me and it caught me by surprise and lost all of my data, unfortunately.

I might just do that to see if it can somehow prevent my hard drive for failing too soon. What are the process to create a system image? Kinda at lost for that part.