Does anyone know why my whole windows explorer is not responding when I connect my "almost dead" hard drive ? I want to try to backup last bits and pieces while it still has some life juice in it, but can't because as soon as windows boots up my whole explorer (file browser) crashes... Anyone knows how to fix it?
Navigating directories to back up specific folders is a bitch, plus you might overlook a few things. I rather download a program to back them all up EASY
I've been doing freelance IT for the last 8 years, and here are my tips. 1. Put a Ziplock bag with a little bit of water and ice on top of the drive. Make sure you put a paper towel (thinner the better) on top of the drive first in case the bag starts to condense. This has fixed infinitely clicking drives, extremely slow (50Kb-100Kb just the other day) drives, and simply ?? don't work drives (just once for me). On the flip side you can heat up the drive! that should ONLY be a last resort!!! as you can easily cause irreparable damage. 2. Make sure you know where the files you want to recover before you start. You don't want to find yourself with a dead drive half way through when you could have finished if you knew where they were. 3. If you make an image, make sure the program reads the old drive sequentially. "bit to bit" and don't change the partition sizes. 4. Sometimes using slower USB works better, USB 3.0 can possibly stress out the drive. And make sure its a quality USB adaptor. I've gone through my fair share of shit ones thinking they would get the job done.. NOPE! Vantec IMO make the best, S.M.A.R.T. works, and even on newer systems its seen as a Native UEFI drive (that caught me by surprise). And my 8+ year old one it still working like new. 5. You CAN repair bad sectors that S.M.A.R.T. and OS software can't recover (chkdisk for one)!! AND recover the corrupted DATA!! first make an image of the drive as stressing the drive can kill it. I use HDD Regenerator and its saved countless drives and files for me, what it simply does is if you remember old TVs when you would have magnet close to them? it would ruin the image right? and what did you do to fix it? air massage the same magnet! :/ I haven't found an alternative to that program but I'm guessing there might be. 6. The power supply might be messing with how the drive works. This is rare, but I've seen it a few times and would have to use an external power supply or just put it in a PC with a good PSU. 7. Use multiple recovery programs, they all work differently and will give you different results. Example; Program 1, will recover files A,B,C, but not D. Program 2 will recover files A,B,D and not C. Program 3!! A,E,F,G etc etc. Some will recover the file damaged and others will actually repair the damaged file, this is very important for corrupted photos. 8. I don't know anything else off the top of my head, and good luck!!
FYI you can shrink the partition before making the image, if the drive is defragged. depending on the defrag quality, this can save you a lot of space and/or you won't need as big of a target drive
+GGRektNoobeZ360quickscopelegendnazi666 -0 videos- 740Gb is that all? I have the following. 2x120GB SSDs 1x1TB HDD 1x500GB USB HDD 16TB in a RAID 5 config. 7GB of free dropbox storage. 2x50GB BD-R discs.
I saw our new IT guy put a hard-drive in a waterproof esd bag, then put frozen cold packs below and above the drive to chill it down as much as possible. He managed to read a raw image off that drive and copy it onto a new one. This was an old 500MB drive off a 20 year old pick-and-place machine. I was shocked/amazed how none of the many previous IT people ever bothered to backup any of the hard-drives on our equipment on the shop floor. They only fixed/backed-up people's PCs' and wouldn't touch any equipment on the production floor. (Not my job syndrome, I suppose). Me and the new IT guy made a continuous improvement project out of putting every piece of equipment (mission critical!!!) on the shop floor on a regular backup schedule.
u are not saving a dying hard drive, u are saving only data... i was thinking to watch a video when linus open the hard drive and do something crazy to save it -.-
+LPnova99 while there are things that can be done to repair the harddrive, it would be cheaper and easier to buy 10 4TB HDD's then to repair the one dying drive.
I also was expecting there to be some sort of home remedy however I'm not the least bit surprised that there wasn't one since companies that specialize in data recovery and don't even guarantee success will charge thousands of dollars to do so... so it doesn't make sense that they would charge such an incredibly high amount if there was some way a person who doesn't know shit about computer components could fix it on their own. This video was at least full of useful information, especially the creating an image of the hard drive part. That sounds like the best course of action IMO.
I don't think you explicitly mentioned this anywhere Linus. Whichever method you decide to use, if it's your boot disk, hook it up to a different PC first so you don't boot from it. If not, your (sequential) backup will be intertwined with regular reads by the OS thus rendering the whole operation riskier than needed.
i had a dying hard drive with gameplay recordings on it. trying to transfer or back up the data normally made it just stop being recognized by the system until the next bootup. but i could still put the files into a video editor and render them. so i did that and rendered them onto a new drive. im not sure how that worked, but it did.
Once you have saved all your data and it turns out the drive is out of warranty, one thing you can do is disassemble the drive. Not only will you learn the inner working of the drive, you can reuse and recycle the parts. For example, the controller board can be resold online because people buy those when they have a controller failure instead of the header failure. The platter can be reused as a mirror as they are really polished and very reflective. The magnets can be reused for your refrig or experiments. The casing and other metal parts can be recycled. It is a fun project.
That was some good advice Linus, thanks. I have seven 1TB drives I've collected over the years and never had an issue. Problem is, they are all full and I don't know what I should do with all that data haha. Contemplating just leaving most of it and buy a couple drives to backup only the most important stuff. a good 70-80% of it is blu-ray movies so it isn't that bad if I lost it.
There is a video that shows exactly what's wrong with my hard drive called (How to fix an i o device error on a wd external hard drive) 2:02 would you be able to help?
What can you do if you've already safely transferred all your photos and documents and music and stuff like that, but the failing computer has a professional audio editing software program installed on it, that you can't get anymore without having to pay a subscription fee? How do you preserve something like that? Is there a way to move it to another computer? The reason I'm asking is because I have an HP Pavilion desktop with Windows 7 that was purchased in 2011. Its hard drive is starting to fail, but I was able to get all my files that I wanted, transferred to an external hard drive and my laptop, so I'm not worried about that. But it has an old bootlegged copy of Adobe Audition 3.0 installed on it, that I got from a radio station I was volunteering at. It's a professional audio editing program that radio stations use for things like making commercials and it's used for music production. I LOVE that program and none of the alternatives seem to do it for me. I need it to go over the audio recordings of my interviews when I do freelance writing gigs for magazines. I also like to make music. I also have a few other video and animation programs installed on the older computer, that I paid for, that I could get again on my laptop, which would cost me about another $200. Question for anyone reading this - Do you think it's worth it for me to try to fix the older computer? They wanted $75 for the first 45 minutes of bench time, diagnosing the problem. They guy said he might be able to fix it as long as the hard drive didn't get scratched. He said when the reader thing digs into it enough to scratch it, that's what permanently destroys it. What should I do? Do you think it'd be a waste of $75 dollars to see if it's fixable? I'm hopeful that it is fixable, at least for now anyway, because I was able to get it to turn on a few times when I transferred the files. The last few days I used it, it started to get ridiculously slow and when I turned it on after shutting down, I got a black screen that said, "insert boot device and press key." So I pressed a key like it said to, and it did actually turn on, two out of three times that I tried, so I was luckily able to transfer my files that I wanted.
I love that everybody thinks Linus is gone and still the most popular NCIX videos are with Linus. Not trying to say something though, I love every one of the creators of this channel. They are all both professional and funny. Love this channel.
Great tutorial....backing up files on a cloud based storage works great. Dupplica is a good one with almost limitless backup storage space options available.
This is what kinda sucks about SSDs. You get no warning at all if your SSD dies. There is software to monitor its health but if it just decides to die one day you're screwed. Ask me how I know.
+Telly Vin-a Just over a year. Bought it last black friday and it died about 2-3 weeks ago? It's a reputable brand and drive too (sandisk ultra ii 240g) just sometimes you get bad luck and get a shitty one. It has monitoring software, but it didn't give me any warnings and said 99% health right up to when it died.
+HJOTech Harddisks only give warning in about half the cases. Often, they die unpredictably. Since SSDs fail much less than half as often as hard disks, you're still at advantage with SSDs. SSDs have wear monitoring. If it was actually wearing out, it would not die altogether, it would become read only, and you'd get a warning before. So SSD wear out is easier to predict than hard disk wear out, and not as critical. But of course SSD death is a random event and has nothing to do with wear at all.
I had a hard drive in which the disc would not even begin to spin. However, I removed the drive from being mounted within the computer, powered up the computer, and while holding the drive in my hand I gave it a quick spin in the opposite direction that the internal disc spins. This caused the disc to spin relative to the casing, and then the motor was then able to get the rpm up to norm after that on its own. Just getting it started was all that was required. Then I copied all the data to another hard drive.
4:10 wrong, you can make a compressed image to a file to an actual smaller drive (assuming that used space is smaller than backup drive), all zeros get compressed
I use a program called Hard Disk Sentinel on all my systems. It constantly monitors the SMART data on the disks, and it tells me if any problems arise (High temp, an bad sector develops etc) It also has a bunch of other tools that I can use to give a hard drive tests, like sequential read, random read and even controls the drive's acoustical and power management (where supported)
I have a drive that is failing, not yet fully failed. And i have a 1.5tb of footage I really would like to keep on there for making video purposes. But I dont really have a spare 2tb hard drive laying around for the disk imagine and I my data corrupts when i just flat out copy it to another drive so im fucked until i get a new drive
+Peter Jönsson So true, i bought me Seagate HD brandnew a little over a year ago and i'm getting really loud clicking when my computer boots and opening programs such as spotify ect.
+camomatt My computer is eating through drives. I had about 5 drives fail in my rig in 1 year. 2 Seagate, 1 Samsung, 1 Toshiba, 1 Hitachi. So then what do I do?
2:16 I believe the future would be Seagate's hybrid drives, only with a much larger "buffer" because Flash Memory is getting cheaper, with an option to slow the drive itself down to reduce stress. For instance, if it has a maximum speed of 7200 or even a ludicrous 10000 RPM, you could slow it down to like, 360 RPM or something.
I have an interesting HDD here's the story: The HDD is runs and working fine and one day the HDD start to give clicking noises, freezes and more and more errors like bluescreen, not booting windows etc and later the HDD is finally unable to boot the Windows and the PC says: Disk boot failure. The interesting part is I unplug the HDD and don't use for a long time and one day I start using it again and working fine without any problems for a long time and start that things again, again. That happened many times. I really don't know what's going on with the HDD. :D. I currently on the state when I not using it, one day I check again. (That's gonna be interesting to see the old Windows.)
I remember the day when one of our computers for robotics pooped out on us, however the hard drive still spins (you can hear it), and it doesn't click very much either. Would a possible incomplete format render the hard drive useless?
I have an interesting HDD here's the story: The HDD is runs and working fine and one day the HDD start to give clicking noises, freezes and more and more errors like bluescreen, not booting windows etc and later the HDD is finally unable to boot the Windows and the PC says: Disk boot failure. The interesting part is I unplug the HDD and don't use for a long time and one day I start using it again and working fine without any problems for a long time and start that things again, again. That happened many times. I really don't know what's going on with the HDD. :D. I currently on the state when I not using it, one day I check again. (That's gonna be interesting to see the old Windows.)
this is for ncix tech tips. some big titles is coming up for ps4 .and I am going crazy with you tube videos, showing how to upgrade hard drives but to me all is so confusing. I am looking to upgrade for 6tb external hard drive upgrade. and many is saying that is not possible but yet I saw some other sailing that is possible. can u guys do a video regarding this issue for thousands of viewers that's struggle with this problem, so far this is the only channel I can give credits! thanks
My laptop hdd failed on me and refused to do anything anymore. A professional person business thingie said it'd cost about 700 euros to retrieve the data and even then there's no guarantee that it'll work. So, I'm screwed, right?
False bait click title. This isnt how to save a dying hard drive its how to save data on a dying hard drive. If a hard drive is dying there is no way to save it.
+eraldorh The title is indeed incomplete, but it isn't a bait click. The content is very related. If anyone was to attempt to repair a dying HDD, the first step would be to secure the data.
One tip is to do a directory listing in DOS, if you can, to a text file on another drive. That way if you do loose the drive you'll know what you lost and it will be simpler to replace those files from your backups.
Funny that they posted this video up now. I suffered a failing drive for the first time last week. I managed to get an image of the drive before sending it off for RMA so I haven't lost anything.
So I should back up my back up to a back up with another back up so my back ups are safe so I don't have to worry about backing up again if something fails because I'll have my back ups back upped?
My drive has now failed on my laptop. No hard drive files show up but I don’t have a constant clicking I get a sound like a wire snapping like a sharp ping every 10 minutes or so even if the laptop is off. Is this hdd dead?
Hey linus, suppose that I wish to create a Mirror of an existing single Hard drive with 2 partitions (including system) is there a way I could create the mirror (including system) without having to reformat the system drive? Thanks
I had an experience with a failing drive many years ago. It was a Micropolis Full Height 40 Mb drive put in service in 1986. The problem seemed to be that the platters were very slow to come up to speed. If the computer was turned off, the system would report a hard drive failure, but if you left it on long enough it would operate normally. It was using a different operating system called Qunix which was like a small version of Unix that allowed multitasking on a 286 PC when DOS and Windows would not and was necessary for the application than needed to crunch analog data into digital in real time. It would have been difficult to restore in its later years of use, so the solution was to make sure the drive was never powered down. I managed to nurse it along until the year 2000 when it was no longer needed. 14 years was pretty good and I doubt if current drives would last that long.
as soon as i heard about seagate hard drives' reliability, i bought two hgst nas hard drives. i'm so relieved i solved my problem before the seagate failed
Another option is to make SATA Hotplug (Motherboard bios must support this) hard drives and cut the 12V and 5V wires and connect them to a correct button that hold position 1 (ON) and position 0 (OFF) when clicking on more pins (2 pole or more) and just use the HDD when u want to turn the HDD on with the button. So basicly functionality is like an USB Portable HDD but the diference is that it is connected to SATA ports.
If your HDD is failing or clicking and you can't copy data off it, put it in an anti static bag, in a zip lock bag. And put it in the fridge/freezer. (If your freezer builds up with chunks of ice don't do this) When you power it on try copy the data you need ASAP before the drive warms up again. Worked a few times, but if the drives dead it won't magically allow you to get everything.
Your vid shows how to back up the drive or what kind of sounds it will make. I wanna know how to stop the HDD from losing health. I use hard disk sentinal and it showed my HDD lost some health. Is there a way to prevent that from happening? i dont have any imp data in this drive so i dont care if i lose it. I just wanna stop this drive from dying.
No, *you don't need a drive with as much space as the failing drive*. If you use a program like Aconis it will clone the drive or image proportionally, removing any wasted space. Acronis will also ignore bad sectors, which is great for failing drive recovery. But for a failing drive MOST of the time the best approach to recover data is to grab small chunks of your mydocs, pic, music, videos in the order that is most important. Because from my many years of experience with recovering client data from dying drives the drive (if you can actually get into it) has a potability of completely failing at any time. So snatching small chunks at a time can give you the best chance of getting your important data at least some or most of it and not wasting time trying to recover useless system and temp files.
Hello i need some tech advice, im building a new gaming pc and am hoping i can use the cpu of a computer we have lying around. The cpu is a Is an intel core 2 duo e8400 3.0 gtzh and am also planning to use the motherboard its with. Is it worth reusing it, or will it not perform well
I made an image on my Hardrive with a different mobo for a backup for a sysrep Now on a different mobo with the same Hardrive sysreped to it, I can't recover the image. Sysrep doesn't delete the files but it stores it somewhere else and I want my image to basically replicate everything I had with the Hardrive before it sysreped to this one with the new mobo. I used an external Hardrive to make the image. Does it have to be on the same mobo?
usually i use ddrescue for this task: unlike dd, it skip (initially) bad sectors, and continue to read all disk (to get more data quickly), then try to re-read bad sectors. I managed to save 249.40GB raw data form an failed hard drive (my boss was angry and threw it's laptop on ground while it was working), but it tooks 3 weeks of 24h work before finishing (1 day for all good sectors, the rest for recovery damaged sectors). However, an double backup of important data is an must, blu ray are the best for this.
Also consider a fantastic utility called Spinrite. Been around forever, and I've used it many times throughout my career. It's great if the drive is already starting to fail and you can't get to your files. Can often recover a drive to fully working when it had already begun to fail.
If I make an image of my drive, can I just use winrar to move the files from the .img file to a folder on another drive (to save the whole “find an identical or bigger drive”)
I haven't had a drive fail on me yet, but I do have a drive that is going to be 8 years old this year, so I have been babying it along until I can start backing stuff up.
Will a tv work as a replacement for a monitor? cause i havent bougt a monitor but i build a rig and it dosent post, its not the rig cause its well assembles, neither the parts they all work, but I dont know if a monitor its requierd or if I need to do some type of type setup or setting changes. Please halp
I need help.... 😭😭😭 one week ago when I start my computer it was showing a message a problem of hard drive has detected... i checked in internet and see my C drive was full of corrupted files and error files... do I ... scan it by chkdsk /f and agree to scan in next reboot.. i was taking too long to check error and unfortunately my niece shutdown my pc.. when I turn it on... nothing showing... expect .. harddisk error message.. i have formated that hdd by dban and installed win 10. when installation complete its showing error again.... hard drive can be fail at any time help me please 😭😭😭😭
If I may ask...My HP desk gave me the "hard disk failure is imminent" message about 2 months ago (yes, I have a functioning brain stem so I'm backed up on a 1 TB external). I also bought an identical replacement HDD as the one I have (Seagate 750GB)Now the questions; I have used this "imminent failing" PC for 2 months and the only issue is it responds slowly, no "read or write" noise coming from my HDD, no other problems at all except it's silent. Both fans are spinning but my PC makes no sound? Do I just back up the operating system, swap my new HDD and toss the old one because I got an error message? It's passed every test I ran (chkdsk etc) or do I save this "dying" HDD and make it a second HDD? My PC is acting like a PC does when it has a virus, not a dying HDD, I've already purchased a replacement but I'd hate to ditch this HDD if I can use it for additional memory space etc. Thanks so much
I couldn't even guess how many hard drives have failed on me over the years. Bloody good thing I do backups. I'm now using SSDs almost exclusively as I hear they do not fail catastrophically like hard drives do. They give you lots of warning when they are reaching their end.
I heard you can find places that can replace the PCB of the hard drive if there was no physical damage to the platters or hardware done. You can at the very least get it back working to transfer to a new drive, however a lot of times its as good as 'new'
ok does this cause the computer to start up very slow and not do anything at all? I have a 2009 emachine and it takes forever to start up and when it does what it needs to do...I open something up and it takes about a half hour to an hour to open something up. I started it in safe mode with networking and it did a little better at start up and opening stuff up. but it eventually frooze up completely. I just got through opening it up to clean out all the dust in it, and hope that does something. it was filled with dust just caked in it.
My HDD clicks like crazy whenever there is a read or write operation, but its been like that for a couple of months now, and it's the drive I install all my games on, so how long do HDDs last after they start clicking?
RAID 1 is a life saver (literally). In 14 years I had to replace one of drives 3 times. Almost all data on drive is research results, customer projects and so on.
If the drive just makes a wining noise, is that good? The drive is in a HP desktop. I tried cloning it and it won't read the new HDD. I been through 3 different HDDs.
I have a 6 month old laptop that sometimes makes clicking noises (3 times every 10 hours of use). Is my hard drive failing already, or is it because I'm doing really intensive tasks ( which I always do).
For some weird reason, my (kinda new) internal harddrive makes a weird clicking sound whenever I try to start a specific program. (and ONLY when starting that specific program) I've uninstalled / reinstalled the program but the sound persists. The weirdest part though is that the program in question isn't even installed there in the first place, but on my SSD.
I have a WD 2TB, about 3 months ago it had a bunch of clicks at once, still didn't die but today I heard a bunch of clicks again. is it normal or it's dying?
My laptop has been making a sharp clicking noise for 2 years now, but has been working fine. However, lately I've been seeing weird artifacts appear on the screen at times. Is it related to a failing harddrive?
Interesting enough, as soon as this started I paused, went downstairs and started a backup that I hadn't done in a month. Need to make that a regular thing.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use. Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
NO. NO. NO...... real men don't do backups we just lay down and cry when the shit i dead
I literally laughed for 5 minutes uncontrollably when I read this!
Well that is what happened today
its too true
Does anyone know why my whole windows explorer is not responding when I connect my "almost dead" hard drive ? I want to try to backup last bits and pieces while it still has some life juice in it, but can't because as soon as windows boots up my whole explorer (file browser) crashes... Anyone knows how to fix it?
@@bojan0258 its dead already.
3:42 "If you're not tech savvy enough to find a few folders and copy them make a disk image"
10/10 flawless logic
Probably means get someone else to do it, since if youre that clueless about where your files are youre screwed anyway without help.
Navigating directories to back up specific folders is a bitch, plus you might overlook a few things. I rather download a program to back them all up EASY
i remember that day like it was yesterday all porn gone it was a sad day
ha
+Andy oh yes, we also remember the despair.
+Andy Same
My condolences.
+Andy lol
I've been doing freelance IT for the last 8 years, and here are my tips.
1. Put a Ziplock bag with a little bit of water and ice on top of the drive. Make sure you put a paper towel (thinner the better) on top of the drive first in case the bag starts to condense. This has fixed infinitely clicking drives, extremely slow (50Kb-100Kb just the other day) drives, and simply ?? don't work drives (just once for me).
On the flip side you can heat up the drive! that should ONLY be a last resort!!! as you can easily cause irreparable damage.
2. Make sure you know where the files you want to recover before you start. You don't want to find yourself with a dead drive half way through when you could have finished if you knew where they were.
3. If you make an image, make sure the program reads the old drive sequentially. "bit to bit" and don't change the partition sizes.
4. Sometimes using slower USB works better, USB 3.0 can possibly stress out the drive. And make sure its a quality USB adaptor. I've gone through my fair share of shit ones thinking they would get the job done.. NOPE! Vantec IMO make the best, S.M.A.R.T. works, and even on newer systems its seen as a Native UEFI drive (that caught me by surprise). And my 8+ year old one it still working like new.
5. You CAN repair bad sectors that S.M.A.R.T. and OS software can't recover (chkdisk for one)!! AND recover the corrupted DATA!! first make an image of the drive as stressing the drive can kill it. I use HDD Regenerator and its saved countless drives and files for me, what it simply does is if you remember old TVs when you would have magnet close to them? it would ruin the image right? and what did you do to fix it? air massage the same magnet! :/ I haven't found an alternative to that program but I'm guessing there might be.
6. The power supply might be messing with how the drive works. This is rare, but I've seen it a few times and would have to use an external power supply or just put it in a PC with a good PSU.
7. Use multiple recovery programs, they all work differently and will give you different results. Example; Program 1, will recover files A,B,C, but not D. Program 2 will recover files A,B,D and not C. Program 3!! A,E,F,G etc etc. Some will recover the file damaged and others will actually repair the damaged file, this is very important for corrupted photos.
8. I don't know anything else off the top of my head, and good luck!!
My PC clicks 70% of the time for 4 years now. Still isn't dead, miracle?
Yup
My ps4 does that but its fine (sometimes)
@@Rain_r4in yea my hdd is clicking way more now. STILL. NOT. -BITTEN- dead*
edit: oh I replied in 10 secs after you posted yout reply lol
@@bobi_lopataru well my ps4 does that
Mine is 15% in 4 years lmao.
My SSD is clicking, what should I do?
panic
Stop eating the purple mushrooms... Or call the fire department.........
+𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝟯𝘇 yep... I would...
+mv03dl100 you OK mate?
+Lindelwe Ncube u ok? m9 u got a liquid ssd woiew
Didn't Linus's server die and didn't he lose a bunch of data?
Because of mobo
Benny Rosario Well that makes me feel so much better about him teaching me tech stuff... not!
ProtoMario Also, I don't think he lost any data.
+ProtoMario He unlost all of it.
But eh, LinusTechTips is a complete misnomer. Usually more like LinusTechPreposterousTorture.
Siana Gearz Yeah man I feel you.
FYI you can shrink the partition before making the image, if the drive is defragged. depending on the defrag quality, this can save you a lot of space and/or you won't need as big of a target drive
my 3TB HDD just got the click of death, i cried like my father died
@@youmoron1917 lol
You should have 4 backups
1: Keep a copy on the computer
2: Back up to an external HDD
3: Back up to a Bluray
4: Back up to the cloud
I have this xD 2 240gb ssd- 500gb external drive and online in onedrive
5. Back up your ass
+GGRektNoobeZ360quickscopelegendnazi666 -0 videos-
740Gb is that all?
I have the following.
2x120GB SSDs
1x1TB HDD
1x500GB USB HDD
16TB in a RAID 5 config.
7GB of free dropbox storage.
2x50GB BD-R discs.
LooooooooL i only have 240gb of files xF
Blu-ray is kinda good idea
I remember the day when one of my hdd wen't to the big motherboard in the sky
went*
I saw our new IT guy put a hard-drive in a waterproof esd bag, then put frozen cold packs below and above the drive to chill it down as much as possible. He managed to read a raw image off that drive and copy it onto a new one. This was an old 500MB drive off a 20 year old pick-and-place machine. I was shocked/amazed how none of the many previous IT people ever bothered to backup any of the hard-drives on our equipment on the shop floor. They only fixed/backed-up people's PCs' and wouldn't touch any equipment on the production floor. (Not my job syndrome, I suppose). Me and the new IT guy made a continuous improvement project out of putting every piece of equipment (mission critical!!!) on the shop floor on a regular backup schedule.
u are not saving a dying hard drive, u are saving only data...
i was thinking to watch a video when linus open the hard drive and do something crazy to save it -.-
+LPnova99 while there are things that can be done to repair the harddrive, it would be cheaper and easier to buy 10 4TB HDD's then to repair the one dying drive.
+LPnova99 I thought the same thing. He is talking about saving the data, not the drive itself. That title is very misleading.
+LPnova99 save it for a coaster, or in a box full of old hardware in the back of the closet.
+LPnova99 Like HDD CPR?
I also was expecting there to be some sort of home remedy however I'm not the least bit surprised that there wasn't one since companies that specialize in data recovery and don't even guarantee success will charge thousands of dollars to do so... so it doesn't make sense that they would charge such an incredibly high amount if there was some way a person who doesn't know shit about computer components could fix it on their own. This video was at least full of useful information, especially the creating an image of the hard drive part. That sounds like the best course of action IMO.
I don't think you explicitly mentioned this anywhere Linus. Whichever method you decide to use, if it's your boot disk, hook it up to a different PC first so you don't boot from it. If not, your (sequential) backup will be intertwined with regular reads by the OS thus rendering the whole operation riskier than needed.
I thought Linus was done with NCIX?
+PhantomTech I think he recorded a shit ton of vids in advanced
+Darkstar 197
Yeah I knew he had videos pre-recorded, but damn he must've made a ton of pre-recorded videos
+PhantomTech well a 6 minuite video where he reads a pre-written script is not hard to do....
+Chaython Meredith
Hmm I guess that's true
+PhantomTech Why if I'm allowed to ask?
WOW seriously ! My hard drive just died this week, still clueless and depressed about it. Thanks NCIX tech tips! Hope this works!
i had a dying hard drive with gameplay recordings on it. trying to transfer or back up the data normally made it just stop being recognized by the system until the next bootup. but i could still put the files into a video editor and render them. so i did that and rendered them onto a new drive. im not sure how that worked, but it did.
Once you have saved all your data and it turns out the drive is out of warranty, one thing you can do is disassemble the drive. Not only will you learn the inner working of the drive, you can reuse and recycle the parts. For example, the controller board can be resold online because people buy those when they have a controller failure instead of the header failure. The platter can be reused as a mirror as they are really polished and very reflective. The magnets can be reused for your refrig or experiments. The casing and other metal parts can be recycled. It is a fun project.
What to back up .
#1-porn
#2-csgo settings
#3 - have i mentioned porn?
Kaneki Ken I have a dedicated porn drive 😅😂
porn Drive 😂😂
my fuckin porn drive died guess I should've backed it up
OH SHIT
i havent even thought about csgo!
my life is over....
Ah yes csgo settings.
Can't raw backup software compress the image prior recording it to the backup drive?
That was some good advice Linus, thanks.
I have seven 1TB drives I've collected over the years and never had an issue. Problem is, they are all full and I don't know what I should do with all that data haha. Contemplating just leaving most of it and buy a couple drives to backup only the most important stuff. a good 70-80% of it is blu-ray movies so it isn't that bad if I lost it.
There is a video that shows exactly what's wrong with my hard drive called (How to fix an i o device error on a wd external hard drive) 2:02 would you be able to help?
5:10
That expression! Yeah. Gotta make backups.
What can you do if you've already safely transferred all your photos and documents and music and stuff like that, but the failing computer has a professional audio editing software program installed on it, that you can't get anymore without having to pay a subscription fee? How do you preserve something like that? Is there a way to move it to another computer? The reason I'm asking is because I have an HP Pavilion desktop with Windows 7 that was purchased in 2011. Its hard drive is starting to fail, but I was able to get all my files that I wanted, transferred to an external hard drive and my laptop, so I'm not worried about that. But it has an old bootlegged copy of Adobe Audition 3.0 installed on it, that I got from a radio station I was volunteering at. It's a professional audio editing program that radio stations use for things like making commercials and it's used for music production. I LOVE that program and none of the alternatives seem to do it for me. I need it to go over the audio recordings of my interviews when I do freelance writing gigs for magazines. I also like to make music. I also have a few other video and animation programs installed on the older computer, that I paid for, that I could get again on my laptop, which would cost me about another $200. Question for anyone reading this - Do you think it's worth it for me to try to fix the older computer? They wanted $75 for the first 45 minutes of bench time, diagnosing the problem. They guy said he might be able to fix it as long as the hard drive didn't get scratched. He said when the reader thing digs into it enough to scratch it, that's what permanently destroys it. What should I do? Do you think it'd be a waste of $75 dollars to see if it's fixable? I'm hopeful that it is fixable, at least for now anyway, because I was able to get it to turn on a few times when I transferred the files. The last few days I used it, it started to get ridiculously slow and when I turned it on after shutting down, I got a black screen that said, "insert boot device and press key." So I pressed a key like it said to, and it did actually turn on, two out of three times that I tried, so I was luckily able to transfer my files that I wanted.
my 13 years old HDD works great, 65,7GB!
+Jakub Krawczuk 79GB on my old pc lol
I love that everybody thinks Linus is gone and still the most popular NCIX videos are with Linus. Not trying to say something though, I love every one of the creators of this channel. They are all both professional and funny. Love this channel.
Heading: How to save your hard drive
Video: How to backup your hard drive
🙌🙌🙌CLICK BAIT🙏🙏🙏
L. BARUAH I know right
He wasn’t lying though. He just explained how to save your data by making a backup on another hard drive
@@tokenchoke But that's saving data, rather than saving the hard drive.
How to save HDD. Victoria is best for this.
No way. It’s not like it’s titled that because it’s the only way to do it
Great tutorial....backing up files on a cloud based storage works great. Dupplica is a good one with almost limitless backup storage space options available.
This is what kinda sucks about SSDs. You get no warning at all if your SSD dies. There is software to monitor its health but if it just decides to die one day you're screwed. Ask me how I know.
+NiceGuysRUs Tried to turn on my PC one day and couldn't. That's about it.
+NiceGuysRUs My SSD decided to just die haha. Gave no warning at all
+NiceGuysRUs probably because he replaced his ssd and it worked
+Telly Vin-a Just over a year. Bought it last black friday and it died about 2-3 weeks ago? It's a reputable brand and drive too (sandisk ultra ii 240g) just sometimes you get bad luck and get a shitty one. It has monitoring software, but it didn't give me any warnings and said 99% health right up to when it died.
+HJOTech Harddisks only give warning in about half the cases. Often, they die unpredictably. Since SSDs fail much less than half as often as hard disks, you're still at advantage with SSDs.
SSDs have wear monitoring. If it was actually wearing out, it would not die altogether, it would become read only, and you'd get a warning before. So SSD wear out is easier to predict than hard disk wear out, and not as critical. But of course SSD death is a random event and has nothing to do with wear at all.
That click of death has haunted me for the last months, we both still live on
I think the "I thought linus left" thing is becoming a troll.
I think that they filmed these videos before he left
+Joona Pimiä you missed the point
The8BitLego not so obvious... Whatever
I had a hard drive in which the disc would not even begin to spin. However, I removed the drive from being mounted within the computer, powered up the computer, and while holding the drive in my hand I gave it a quick spin in the opposite direction that the internal disc spins. This caused the disc to spin relative to the casing, and then the motor was then able to get the rpm up to norm after that on its own. Just getting it started was all that was required. Then I copied all the data to another hard drive.
TL:DR : How to save a dying hard drive
step 1: save your dying hard drive.
back your files.
you're welcome.
4:10 wrong, you can make a compressed image to a file to an actual smaller drive (assuming that used space is smaller than backup drive), all zeros get compressed
well my ssd is dead so can i have a small loan of milion dollars
+sam rit Still waiting on mines
Sure trump
+It's Akile Are you building the wall? What mines are you using to keep the fuckers out?
k lol Proximity of course
I use a program called Hard Disk Sentinel on all my systems. It constantly monitors the SMART data on the disks, and it tells me if any problems arise (High temp, an bad sector develops etc) It also has a bunch of other tools that I can use to give a hard drive tests, like sequential read, random read and even controls the drive's acoustical and power management (where supported)
All this talk of backups makes me realize how value-less my data is. If all my drives failed, I'd just have to re-download steam games.
I have a drive that is failing, not yet fully failed. And i have a 1.5tb of footage I really would like to keep on there for making video purposes. But I dont really have a spare 2tb hard drive laying around for the disk imagine and I my data corrupts when i just flat out copy it to another drive so im fucked until i get a new drive
My hard drive started failing TODAY. Man, this video could not have been timed more perfectly!
Simple, don't buy Seagate HDD's..
+Peter Jönsson So true, i bought me Seagate HD brandnew a little over a year ago and i'm getting really loud clicking when my computer boots and opening programs such as spotify ect.
+CS:GO is better than COD. I used to have a Seagate harddrive...when it died it took with it all my other HDD's that was on the same SATA line..
Western Digital team!
+Peter Jönsson I have a 3 year old 3TB, 2 year old 4TB, a 5 year old 1TB. All Seagate and all working fine. What should I do?
+camomatt My computer is eating through drives. I had about 5 drives fail in my rig in 1 year. 2 Seagate, 1 Samsung, 1 Toshiba, 1 Hitachi. So then what do I do?
2:16 I believe the future would be Seagate's hybrid drives, only with a much larger "buffer" because Flash Memory is getting cheaper, with an option to slow the drive itself down to reduce stress. For instance, if it has a maximum speed of 7200 or even a ludicrous 10000 RPM, you could slow it down to like, 360 RPM or something.
I have an interesting HDD here's the story:
The HDD is runs and working fine and one day the HDD start to give clicking noises, freezes and more and more errors like bluescreen, not booting windows etc and later the HDD is finally unable to boot the Windows and the PC says: Disk boot failure. The interesting part is I unplug the HDD and don't use for a long time and one day I start using it again and working fine without any problems for a long time and start that things again, again. That happened many times. I really don't know what's going on with the HDD. :D. I currently on the state when I not using it, one day I check again. (That's gonna be interesting to see the old Windows.)
It is problem of mother board of HDD. Your platters are good . Ithink so
There is also the state when the PC doesn't recognize the HDD. Currently it works again.
Currently the HDD works again.
@@MMaheshThakur yes, they are probably good. I still can't imagine what is wrong with the HDD. You are probably right with the motherboard.
@@VDani16 my 2tb wd portable HDD is going is dead 1.1 tb data gone. I'm very sad. These compny are sucking our blood
I remember the day when one of our computers for robotics pooped out on us, however the hard drive still spins (you can hear it), and it doesn't click very much either. Would a possible incomplete format render the hard drive useless?
More like ''How to save the files of a dying hard drive''
Sorry for your loss, just dealt with this issue :(
had one HDD click for 2 months, and then went back to normal. I dont trust that HDD to not spontaneously blow up on me.
I have an interesting HDD here's the story:
The HDD is runs and working fine and one day the HDD start to give clicking noises, freezes and more and more errors like bluescreen, not booting windows etc and later the HDD is finally unable to boot the Windows and the PC says: Disk boot failure. The interesting part is I unplug the HDD and don't use for a long time and one day I start using it again and working fine without any problems for a long time and start that things again, again. That happened many times. I really don't know what's going on with the HDD. :D. I currently on the state when I not using it, one day I check again. (That's gonna be interesting to see the old Windows.)
this is for ncix tech tips. some big titles is coming up for ps4 .and I am going crazy with you tube videos, showing how to upgrade hard drives but to me all is so confusing. I am looking to upgrade for 6tb external hard drive upgrade. and many is saying that is not possible but yet I saw some other sailing that is possible. can u guys do a video regarding this issue for thousands of viewers that's struggle with this problem, so far this is the only channel I can give credits! thanks
I put important stuff on an SSD so I don't lose anything CRUCIAL
Get it? Crucial? Because Crucial is an SSD manufacturer? Haha...ha...
+Mr Kagouris SSD's can fail too
they fail too
But it's less likely to.
So what does memtest give in that sit.? Does it maybe show at least "broken" place on hdd?
never had a failed hdd. still got everything backuped about every 2 weeks.
I backup about every 1 week, on day where i do major change i will backup it up asap
My laptop hdd failed on me and refused to do anything anymore. A professional person business thingie said it'd cost about 700 euros to retrieve the data and even then there's no guarantee that it'll work. So, I'm screwed, right?
False bait click title. This isnt how to save a dying hard drive its how to save data on a dying hard drive. If a hard drive is dying there is no way to save it.
+jazzthieve The only idiot here is the one who is incapable of elaborating his point.
+jazzthieve Excellent demonstration, thanks for playing genius.
+eraldorh
Protip: A hard drive IS data. All technology fails eventually.
Except Nokias. They're built out of Nintendium.
+eraldorh The title is indeed incomplete, but it isn't a bait click. The content is very related. If anyone was to attempt to repair a dying HDD, the first step would be to secure the data.
hey I've used backupper cloning program before when I needed to upgrade to a larger drive. would that work on a failing drive though??
Where did I go wrong?
I lost a friend.
Fireclaw Studios
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life
One tip is to do a directory listing in DOS, if you can, to a text file on another drive. That way if you do loose the drive you'll know what you lost and it will be simpler to replace those files from your backups.
I've been using computers since 1997, and never saw any of my HDD dying. Nevertheless it's a constant fear in my mind, even with backups.
Good for you, I most likely will get another one. Twice in total.
So true when you think that your backup drive could fail very soon after your hdd fail or when it just kind of make u go to full anxiety mode
Funny that they posted this video up now. I suffered a failing drive for the first time last week. I managed to get an image of the drive before sending it off for RMA so I haven't lost anything.
you dont give any solution
So I should back up my back up to a back up with another back up so my back ups are safe so I don't have to worry about backing up again if something fails because I'll have my back ups back upped?
My drive has now failed on my laptop. No hard drive files show up but I don’t have a constant clicking I get a sound like a wire snapping like a sharp ping every 10 minutes or so even if the laptop is off. Is this hdd dead?
Hey linus, suppose that I wish to create a Mirror of an existing single Hard drive with 2 partitions (including system) is there a way I could create the mirror (including system) without having to reformat the system drive? Thanks
I had an experience with a failing drive many years ago. It was a Micropolis Full Height 40 Mb drive put in service in 1986. The problem seemed to be that the platters were very slow to come up to speed. If the computer was turned off, the system would report a hard drive failure, but if you left it on long enough it would operate normally. It was using a different operating system called Qunix which was like a small version of Unix that allowed multitasking on a 286 PC when DOS and Windows would not and was necessary for the application than needed to crunch analog data into digital in real time. It would have been difficult to restore in its later years of use, so the solution was to make sure the drive was never powered down. I managed to nurse it along until the year 2000 when it was no longer needed. 14 years was pretty good and I doubt if current drives would last that long.
as soon as i heard about seagate hard drives' reliability, i bought two hgst nas hard drives. i'm so relieved i solved my problem before the seagate failed
Another option is to make SATA Hotplug (Motherboard bios must support this) hard drives and cut the 12V and 5V wires and connect them to a correct button that hold position 1 (ON) and position 0 (OFF) when clicking on more pins (2 pole or more) and just use the HDD when u want to turn the HDD on with the button. So basicly functionality is like an USB Portable HDD but the diference is that it is connected to SATA ports.
If your HDD is failing or clicking and you can't copy data off it, put it in an anti static bag, in a zip lock bag. And put it in the fridge/freezer. (If your freezer builds up with chunks of ice don't do this)
When you power it on try copy the data you need ASAP before the drive warms up again. Worked a few times, but if the drives dead it won't magically allow you to get everything.
Your vid shows how to back up the drive or what kind of sounds it will make. I wanna know how to stop the HDD from losing health. I use hard disk sentinal and it showed my HDD lost some health. Is there a way to prevent that from happening? i dont have any imp data in this drive so i dont care if i lose it. I just wanna stop this drive from dying.
No, *you don't need a drive with as much space as the failing drive*. If you use a program like Aconis it will clone the drive or image proportionally, removing any wasted space. Acronis will also ignore bad sectors, which is great for failing drive recovery.
But for a failing drive MOST of the time the best approach to recover data is to grab small chunks of your mydocs, pic, music, videos in the order that is most important. Because from my many years of experience with recovering client data from dying drives the drive (if you can actually get into it) has a potability of completely failing at any time. So snatching small chunks at a time can give you the best chance of getting your important data at least some or most of it and not wasting time trying to recover useless system and temp files.
The stands on which the hard drives are, where did you get them?
You are soo freaking right. If you heard click before you probably have backup now.
Hello i need some tech advice, im building a new gaming pc and am hoping i can use the cpu of a computer we have lying around. The cpu is a Is an intel core 2 duo e8400 3.0 gtzh and am also planning to use the motherboard its with. Is it worth reusing it, or will it not perform well
Would disk cloning software work? Like the ones that come stock with most Samsung SSD's?
I got a Seagate hdd not long ago, and it has this clicking sound when under load from day 1. Should i worry?
I made an image on my Hardrive with a different mobo for a backup for a sysrep
Now on a different mobo with the same Hardrive sysreped to it, I can't recover the image. Sysrep doesn't delete the files but it stores it somewhere else and I want my image to basically replicate everything I had with the Hardrive before it sysreped to this one with the new mobo. I used an external Hardrive to make the image. Does it have to be on the same mobo?
usually i use ddrescue for this task: unlike dd, it skip (initially) bad sectors, and continue to read all disk (to get more data quickly), then try to re-read bad sectors.
I managed to save 249.40GB raw data form an failed hard drive (my boss was angry and threw it's laptop on ground while it was working), but it tooks 3 weeks of 24h work before finishing (1 day for all good sectors, the rest for recovery damaged sectors).
However, an double backup of important data is an must, blu ray are the best for this.
Also consider a fantastic utility called Spinrite. Been around forever, and I've used it many times throughout my career. It's great if the drive is already starting to fail and you can't get to your files. Can often recover a drive to fully working when it had already begun to fail.
If I make an image of my drive, can I just use winrar to move the files from the .img file to a folder on another drive (to save the whole “find an identical or bigger drive”)
I haven't had a drive fail on me yet, but I do have a drive that is going to be 8 years old this year, so I have been babying it along until I can start backing stuff up.
so that loud fan isn't my fan is a metal sniping disk every time i play an hour long video?
the times I've tried cooling off my laptop
Will a tv work as a replacement for a monitor? cause i havent bougt a monitor but i build a rig and it dosent post, its not the rig cause its well assembles, neither the parts they all work, but I dont know if a monitor its requierd or if I need to do some type of type setup or setting changes. Please halp
I need help.... 😭😭😭
one week ago when I start my computer it was showing a message a problem of hard drive has detected... i checked in internet and see my C drive was full of corrupted files and error files... do I ... scan it by chkdsk /f and agree to scan in next reboot.. i was taking too long to check error and unfortunately my niece shutdown my pc.. when I turn it on... nothing showing... expect .. harddisk error message..
i have formated that hdd by dban and installed win 10. when installation complete its showing error again....
hard drive can be fail at any time
help me please 😭😭😭😭
If I may ask...My HP desk gave me the "hard disk failure is imminent" message about 2 months ago (yes, I have a functioning brain stem so I'm backed up on a 1 TB external). I also bought an identical replacement HDD as the one I have (Seagate 750GB)Now the questions; I have used this "imminent failing" PC for 2 months and the only issue is it responds slowly, no "read or write" noise coming from my HDD, no other problems at all except it's silent. Both fans are spinning but my PC makes no sound? Do I just back up the operating system, swap my new HDD and toss the old one because I got an error message? It's passed every test I ran (chkdsk etc) or do I save this "dying" HDD and make it a second HDD? My PC is acting like a PC does when it has a virus, not a dying HDD, I've already purchased a replacement but I'd hate to ditch this HDD if I can use it for additional memory space etc. Thanks so much
I couldn't even guess how many hard drives have failed on me over the years. Bloody good thing I do backups. I'm now using SSDs almost exclusively as I hear they do not fail catastrophically like hard drives do. They give you lots of warning when they are reaching their end.
With SSDs they work and all of the sudden die with all data gone and unrecoverable.
I heard you can find places that can replace the PCB of the hard drive if there was no physical damage to the platters or hardware done. You can at the very least get it back working to transfer to a new drive, however a lot of times its as good as 'new'
ok does this cause the computer to start up very slow and not do anything at all? I have a 2009 emachine and it takes forever to start up and when it does what it needs to do...I open something up and it takes about a half hour to an hour to open something up. I started it in safe mode with networking and it did a little better at start up and opening stuff up. but it eventually frooze up completely. I just got through opening it up to clean out all the dust in it, and hope that does something. it was filled with dust just caked in it.
as far as saved stuff on this computer... i have no clue whats on it or if i need it.
Great video on memory back up, now I must not forget to do this :)
Hi,
does your vault have a backup? ;P
I loved this video.
regards
My HDD clicks like crazy whenever there is a read or write operation, but its been like that for a couple of months now, and it's the drive I install all my games on, so how long do HDDs last after they start clicking?
RAID 1 is a life saver (literally). In 14 years I had to replace one of drives 3 times. Almost all data on drive is research results, customer projects and so on.
Hi! Do you know how to fix "Reallocated Sectors Count" and "Current Pending Sector Count"?
If the drive just makes a wining noise, is that good? The drive is in a HP desktop. I tried cloning it and it won't read the new HDD. I been through 3 different HDDs.
I have a 6 month old laptop that sometimes makes clicking noises (3 times every 10 hours of use). Is my hard drive failing already, or is it because I'm doing really intensive tasks ( which I always do).
For some weird reason, my (kinda new) internal harddrive makes a weird clicking sound whenever I try to start a specific program. (and ONLY when starting that specific program) I've uninstalled / reinstalled the program but the sound persists. The weirdest part though is that the program in question isn't even installed there in the first place, but on my SSD.
I have a WD 2TB, about 3 months ago it had a bunch of clicks at once,
still didn't die but today I heard a bunch of clicks again. is it normal
or it's dying?
Linus, you always make me Smile! :)
My laptop has been making a sharp clicking noise for 2 years now, but has been working fine. However, lately I've been seeing weird artifacts appear on the screen at times. Is it related to a failing harddrive?
Interesting enough, as soon as this started I paused, went downstairs and started a backup that I hadn't done in a month. Need to make that a regular thing.
The link to buy hard drives for Canada doesn't work.
How do I backup outlook express!! Please suggest
Those cat pictures at 1:18 are more crispy than the entire video.
As long as it spins and is not your booting drive, *MiniTool Power Data Recovery* might help. It saved me a couple of times.
I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you’re referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux, or as I’ve recently taken to calling it, GNU plus Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX. Many computer users run a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it. Through a peculiar turn of events, the version of GNU which is widely used today is often called “Linux”, and many of its users are not aware that it is basically the GNU system, developed by the GNU Project. There really is a Linux, and these people are using it, but it is just a part of the system they use.
Linux is the kernel: the program in the system that allocates the machine’s resources to the other programs that you run. The kernel is an essential part of an operating system, but useless by itself; it can only function in the context of a complete operating system. Linux is normally used in combination with the GNU operating system: the whole system is basically GNU with Linux added, or GNU/Linux. All the so-called “Linux” distributions are really distributions of GNU/Linux.