Hard Disk likely very dead... seeking clarification on process

[cstelter]

Hi All,
I've searched around and I think I've found my answers, but I want to ask just a few clarifications. Hopefully someone out there will know these off the top of their head.

I flipped over to my HR10-250 the other night to find it blank. I unplugged and replugged it and it made an awful clicking sound and never got past 'Powering up'. It's 3.5 years old so I'm assuming the HDD has given up the ghost and I've purchased a replacement. I don't use the unit much but I like it for SD content as a backup to my HR20-700. There were a couple shows I'd been meaning to watch on it so I'd like to first smack the drive around and possibly unstick it enough to clone it. Assuming that fails, I guess I can get an 'Instant cake' image for ~$20. But I have another HR10-250 in a bedroom that is functioning. I think I can make a backup from that drive and restore it to the new HDD and then put that in the dead HR10-250.

However, I read you must C&DE in order to remarry the disk to the other unit.

Questions

1) Am I right that I can use the one HR10-250 to restore the other?
2) Do I need to put the clone back in the working HR10-250 and then do C&DE and then transfer the drive?
--> Or do I just put the clone in the bad unit and do C&DE there?
3) Any tricks to suggest to try to get the drive functioning long enough to make a copy (other than whacking it a few times)? I've read about something called spinright-- is that still recommended? I'm assuming it's so dead that it won't even be recognized by the PC MB but you never know.

Thanks in advance.

[Da Goon]

Spinrite may save your drive, maybe not. It's relatively expensive, so I honestly wouldn't recommend trying it unless you already own spinrite. You can get an image from your working box and it'll work just fine. The C&DE process needs to be done on the destination tivo. The whole point of doing it is to marry the software to the new box.

[cstelter]

Spinrite may save your drive, maybe not. It's relatively expensive, so I honestly wouldn't recommend trying it unless you already own spinrite. You can get an image from your working box and it'll work just fine. The C&DE process needs to be done on the destination tivo. The whole point of doing it is to marry the software to the new box.

Thanks so much for the advice! I'm just now trying to boot my PC with the old/new drives attached... I'll know soon if there is any hope of recovery..

[cstelter]

Well I'm back up and running. Motherbord continually complained that the old HDD was fatal-- wouldn't even boot with the drive happy.

So I did a backup | restore command using mfslive (The ICG is a cool tool btw :up:) and my other HR10-250's good drive. Popped the new drive into the dead box, it reported an internal error (as expected), did Clear and Delete everything. After a good hour reboot it's up and functioning.