8 minutes ago, unofix said:

I've never been able to clone a operating drive that was actually in use at the time, I used to always use a separate machine and connect the drive to be copied and the new blank to that.

I think using the USB enclosure it would be possible to make a copy of all data on the drive but not make a working, bootable clone of the operating system. Can you please advise me on this @alexp999 ?

You see, this is exactly why I used my local (and trusted) local repair shop to do mine LOL Years ago I tried to clone a drive from a Sky box in order not to lose all my recordings when it went faulty, very very time consuming though I did get it to work... eventually!

if its a 2.5" probably will be drive you can pick up a USB lead then use it as an external to read any info needed for a couple of quid.

This type of thing  ---- https://www.temu.com/uk/usb-3-0-to-sata-22-pin-6-35-cm-hard-disk-drive-ssd-adapter-connector-lead-cable-g-601099517586826.html?_x_sessn_id=l4xtcklxzw&refer_page_name=bgn_verification&refer_page_id=10017_1710842394808_qxsvhpdrco&refer_page_sn=10017

1 hour ago, unofix said:

I've never been able to clone a operating drive that was actually in use at the time, I used to always use a separate machine and connect the drive to be copied and the new blank to that.

I think using the USB enclosure it would be possible to make a copy of all data on the drive but not make a working, bootable clone of the operating system. Can you please advise me on this @alexp999 ?

If you get something like an 870 EVO, you can use Samsung Magician to clone your current drive to the new SSD, and then switch them over.

Most of the other manufacturer's selling retail drivers offer something similar. Samsung's is just one of the ones I've actually used.

You can also get a trial version of Macrium Reflect software for cloning. Some of the USB enclosures will also do the cloning in hardware - i.e., you remove the drive from the system and place it in the enclosure, insert the target drive, power it up and it will do the clone without software. Sounds unlikely, but I have actually done it successfully with this:

USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station, WAVLINK 2 Bay HDD Docking Station for 2.5 & 3.5 inch HDD SSD SATA, HDD Caddy Support Offline Clone, 2X16TB, UASP, Tool-Free: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Macrium Reflect (also does backups, so may be worth actually purchasing it):

Home Edition (macrium.com)

Thanks to everyone who has made suggestions and given advice. I used to be quite involved with this kind of thing but that was more than 7 years ago, and it seems like everything technology has moved on in leaps and bounds. I very much like the idea of the 'stand alone' clone devices and at around £35 they seem worth trying. I probably will look at a 2TB SSD which will be more than sufficient for my laptop.

So far only had one laptop crash in the last 24 hours.

1 minute ago, unofix said:

So far only had one laptop crash in the last 24 hours.

MS is brilliant at plain English LOL At least, not a BSOD...

io error usually HDD caused, is it due any software updates, not a Dell perchance

3 minutes ago, Jimpster said:

io error usually HDD caused

I'm liking my suggestion of an SSD upgrade even more now LOL

Just now, StephenFord said:

I'm liking my suggestion of an SSD upgrade even more now LOL

If the data stored on the drive is corrupt, the error will still move across though without additional repairs.

check for any additional upgrades within the upgrade settings, if any and in doubt load them all.

 

3 hours ago, alexp999 said:

If the data stored on the drive is corrupt, the error will still move across though without additional repairs.

Yes, that is my real concern. It's a Dell laptop and Windows 7 came pre-installed with a recovery partition. Unfortunately I don't have any of the software on CD so if the drive fails it will be game over.

Assuming it's a hard drive error and not a RAM issue then you might get lucky with a hardware or offline clone and running chkdsk /r afterwards to try and fix the issue. I've gotten away with this in the past.

Option B is use cloning software that makes the clone whilst the OS is running using shadow copy. This performs a file-based transfer rather than the bit-based transfer that a hardware/offline clone typically does, so in theory it will skip over bad sectors. Windows 7's shadow copy is slightly less resilient than later versions, though, plus not all clone software will work happily with Windows 7 as it is getting on a bit and isn't officially supported.

1 hour ago, alexp999 said:

If the data stored on the drive is corrupt, the error will still move across though without additional repairs.

I don't think that's correct. The MS pixie fairies will fix all faults on transfer, they're very good at repairing any inbuilt faults (!) and new drive will be perfect 🤣

depending on what you have on it, not including the operating software back it all up to a big enough stick, take screenshots of whatever else is on there

the RAM could be a problem i've a Dell 1750 on my operating table that refuses to fire up, well it starts fails to post and shuts down.

 

An alternative to trying to find a workable solution for cloning the drive from within the OS on the drive itself, or buying a drive cloning device, would be to get a cheap USB-to-SATA adapter such as the one @Jimpster linked to above for a few £s (which you can also find cheaply on ebay) and run Linux on your laptop off of a DVD or USB stick (aka a "live" OS). You can then simply use the built-in `dd` command to clone the raw contents of one drive to the other.

See here for a simple intro to using an Ubuntu Linux live OS: https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu-before-you-install. Essentially you'd download the DVD ISO, burn it to a DVD (or do the equivalent for a USB stick), reboot, and then it should load the DVD menu automatically, from which you'd select the 'try before install' option, which will then just load and run the OS from the DVD without touching the Windows installation on your HDD. If the menu does not appear then you may need to press a key on your keyboard during boot to choose to boot from the DVD, or change your BIOS/UEFI settings to allow it. (A live OS isn't just for providing a 'try before you install' experience, it's also very useful for recovery purposes or certain other tasks like disc cloning).

If your new drive is larger than the old one, no matter what solution you use you'll want to use a partitioning tool afterwards to expand the cloned partition to incorporate the extra space.

Edit: Oh, if your HDD uses a newer GPT based partition map, rather than the older MBR type, there's one further complication with doing a raw clone onto a larger SSD. A backup copy of the partition table is kept at the end of the disk. After doing a raw clone this backup table would have to be moved to the correct location toward the end of the new larger disk prior to then expanding the partition size. If the partition manager is not able to move it itself, this could be achieved with `dd`, but we'd need to check the location details. Edit: seems that the `gparted` tool may be able to do it, otherwise `sgdisk -e`.

Excellent in depth solution but not to insult maybe a bit out of his comfort zone

7 hours ago, unofix said:

Yes, that is my real concern. It's a Dell laptop and Windows 7 came pre-installed with a recovery partition. Unfortunately I don't have any of the software on CD so if the drive fails it will be game over.

It's been a very long time since I've used Windows so I'm forgetting things, but I don't think you need the install disc for using recovery mode (though perhaps you meant for a possible reinstall). Apparently to use the recovery mode provided by the recovery partition you supposedly just have to keep pressing F6 during boot to enter it, then you select a language, login, and then you're presented with a menu of options.

There are some suggestions about fixing issues after possible corruption here, discussing the same error you have: https://forum.level1techs.com/t/how-do-i-confirm-the-cause-of-an-i-o-issue/177232. So after cloning to a new drive you could enter recovery mode via F6, select the command prompt option, use the commands suggested by anon7678104 in that link to fix any corruption, and then hopefully you should be good to go.

I guess if you are completely out of your depth with all of this and you'd like me to do it I could...

Alternatively you could take your existing HDD out of your laptop, stick the replacement it, get a local repair shop to install a fresh copy of Windows on it, then with the cheap SATA-to-USB adapter, hook up your old HDD and copy your data across. You'd have to reinstall all of your software and reapply all of your settings though which could be a pain though.

Lots more options than I expected. The good thing is it looks like I can clone the drive with just the one computer. 

11 hours ago, rd457 said:

You'd have to reinstall all of your software and reapply all of your settings though which could be a pain

This is what I've always hated about Windows. I've always thought the Windows registry (not registery, Stephen ) was a really cr@p idea. We used a lot of Macs where I worked and with MacOS the data and settings for each application were held in separate files. This meant you could overwrite the operating system without having to re-install everything else. I'm a bit out of touch with things nowadays but I think the same is true of Unix and Linux.

It is i much prefer Linux but even that has its limitations

Re-installed Ccleaner seems its OK. UPDATE oh high CPU usage [am like a dog with a bone] went looking for igfxupdate files as embedded virus's, Malwarebytes didnt find anything, not infected and finally ran "sfc /scannow" 

allegedly repaired some files but didnt say what, my cpu seems to have cooled its jets.