Windows 7 file search bar not working

Quote from RockySosua : Windows has a built in system image capacity in the control panel. If you restore from your built in partition then make a system image with Windows to an external hard drive, then you'll be able to install that same image onto a new hard drive, if and when you decide to replace the present one.

I'm trying to understand this. I know that there's a Backup and Restore option in windows although I've never used it before. Suppose I make a backup image of my new recovery of the OS from scratch again based on the partition on the hard drive and back it up. Then, I would try to get an internal hard drive to replace this with. From there, if I don't have the old partition that has windows 7 on it from the old hard drive, this new hard drive installed won't have anything, so what program would I use that would load the image and install windows 7 OS and everything from that image?

By the way, I'm not familiar with replacing anything off of a laptop as it doesn't look easy to take it apart and you have to be very specific on the specs in order to know what to buy that you can replace it with to make it compatible with the entire system. How easy or hard is it?

Quote from mrbobhcrhs : I am talking about tools from the Hard Drive maker (Western Digital, Seagate, etc). They are the best way to identify a bad drive.

I looked into my device manager and found out my hard drive is a "toshiba mk5055gsx". Would you know what tool they have? If not, I'll contact them to see if they have some diagnostic tool.

Quote from mikenmike0001 : I'm trying to understand this. I know that there's a Backup and Restore option in windows although I've never used it before. Suppose I make a backup image of my new recovery of the OS from scratch again based on the partition on the hard drive and back it up. Then, I would try to get an internal hard drive to replace this with. From there, if I don't have the old partition that has windows 7 on it from the old hard drive, this new hard drive installed won't have anything, so what program would I use that would load the image and install windows 7 OS and everything from that image? By the way, I'm not familiar with replacing anything off of a laptop as it doesn't look easy to take it apart and you have to be very specific on the specs in order to know what to buy that you can replace it with to make it compatible with the entire system. How easy or hard is it? I looked into my device manager and found out my hard drive is a "toshiba mk5055gsx". Would you know what tool they have? If not, I'll contact them to see if they have some diagnostic tool.

This should [toshiba.com] be it found here [toshiba.com]

Quote from mikenmike0001 : I'm trying to understand this. I know that there's a Backup and Restore option in windows although I've never used it before. Suppose I make a backup image of my new recovery of the OS from scratch again based on the partition on the hard drive and back it up. Then, I would try to get an internal hard drive to replace this with. From there, if I don't have the old partition that has windows 7 on it from the old hard drive, this new hard drive installed won't have anything, so what program would I use that would load the image and install windows 7 OS and everything from that image? .

In the control panel, under back up and restore, there is an option on the left hand side, called "Create System image". It makes a perfect clone of your OS as it is at the moment of making the image. You need to connect your external hard drive and once you start the procedure, Windows will find the external and offer to use it for the image. Approx. 10 minutes later, the image will be complete and a window will pop-up, offering to burn a repair/restore DVD, which you will do.
Once you have installed the new hard drive into the laptop, you boot up with the DVD and in a couple of minutes you are faced with two options, to repair or restore from an image.
You'll choose the latter and Windows will find the image by itself ans ask you to confirm that you want to install the image, and approx. 10 minutes later, it will boot up for the first time, 100% identical to what it was when you made the image.

By the way, I'm not familiar with replacing anything off of a laptop as it doesn't look easy to take it apart and you have to be very specific on the specs in order to know what to buy that you can replace it with to make it compatible with the entire system. How easy or hard is it?

Please give me the exact brand and model and I'll give you the instructions.
Almost all laptops have removable plates at the bottom, some only have 1, some have 2 and occasion, even 3. They are easy to remove and you'll know you're in the right place when you see the hard drive.
The hard drive may have 1 or 2 more screws holding it in.
You remove the hard drive and if it has a small case around it, remove that too and put it on the new hard drive. Put the new drive where the old one was, put any and all screws back in, put the cover plate back on, then get set to install the image that you have on the external HD.
Almost all laptop hard drives are identical on the outside.
Yours is a 500 gig, 5400 rpm SATA laptop hard drive 2.5 inch.
You could replace it with this 7200 rpm Hitachi of the same size for $80.
http://www.amazon.com/Hitachi-Tra...+drive+2.5

Hey There,

I was reading both of your posts and I was looking into the support page on Toshiba's website from mrbobhcrhs's link. I decided to look at the device manager through a search on the control panel window, and it was able to find the device manager (using the windows file search toolbar), so then I thought, maybe I should try it on the other folders like Downloads and My Pictures. I entered in some file names and file types that I knew existed, and BAM, now the results come up again.

I took a snapshot to show the new date and time and uploaded it on SkyDrive, dated "June 18"

http://sdrv.ms/N6OgIl

This is very bizarre, maybe it is a hard drive issue. It's On and Off problem. The only thing I've done since updating you guys of it happening again was saving a few files of MS Word and Excel, surfing the internet, and putting my computer to sleep and turning it back on when I use it multiple times in the day.

This is strange.

Quote from mrbobhcrhs : This should [toshiba.com] be it found here [toshiba.com]

Hi, thanks for the links. I was unable to find it myself. I noticed though that each of these diagnostic tools that are exe or zip files are listed for hard drives that are IDE/ATA/SCSI. Since the hard drive model that I have in this laptop is: toshiba mk5055gsx, and on Google, it states it is a SATA connector inside the laptop, then would those diagnostic tools be compatible with the connection and work?

Quote from RockySosua : You need to connect your external hard drive and once you start the procedure, Windows will find the external and offer to use it for the image. Approx. 10 minutes later, the image will be complete and a window will pop-up, offering to burn a repair/restore DVD, which you will do. Once you have installed the new hard drive into the laptop, you boot up with the DVD and in a couple of minutes you are faced with two options, to repair or restore from an image. You'll choose the latter and Windows will find the image by itself ans ask you to confirm that you want to install the image

I was wondering, if it makes you burn the image into a DVD, then how come it has you store the image on an external? Does it just create the image at that location and from there, burn the image as a bootable dvd off of the external image?

Also, what file directories does the backup and restore option save? Does it save your custom folders outside of the "Libraries" (besides My Documents, Downloads, My Pictures, etc) or is it just the system folders that it saves?

Quote from RockySosua : Please give me the exact brand and model and I'll give you the instructions. Almost all laptops have removable plates at the bottom, some only have 1, some have 2 and occasion, even 3. They are easy to remove and you'll know you're in the right place when you see the hard drive.[/url]

Hey thanks for the Amazon link. My laptop's model is Acer Aspire 7740-6656. Thanks for trying to look up on how to take it apart. Are these hard drive replacements something like the hard drives that you would install on a desktop where there's pin configurations that you have to set in order for the computer to know how to read it?

Also, is there any way that I can back up and save the partition that's on my existing hard drive that has the Acer Diagnostic and System Recovery features that you can get into at boot up before it gets into Windows? They never gave me a CD for these things.

I'm starting to dislike Acer, I've only had this for 2 years and the warranty is out and it's having memory or hard drive issues already, and they don't bother to give you cd's to install or recover from. I had an old Dell laptop running on Windows XP that's lasted for over 7 years and only the built in battery is busted now, but everything else is working fine.

Quote from mikenmike0001 : Hey There, I was reading both of your posts and I was looking into the support page on Toshiba's website from mrbobhcrhs's link. I decided to look at the device manager through a search on the control panel window, and it was able to find the device manager (using the windows file search toolbar), so then I thought, maybe I should try it on the other folders like Downloads and My Pictures. I entered in some file names and file types that I knew existed, and BAM, now the results come up again. I took a snapshot to show the new date and time and uploaded it on SkyDrive, dated "June 18" http://sdrv.ms/N6OgIl This is very bizarre, maybe it is a hard drive issue. It's On and Off problem. The only thing I've done since updating you guys of it happening again was saving a few files of MS Word and Excel, surfing the internet, and putting my computer to sleep and turning it back on when I use it multiple times in the day. This is strange. Hi, thanks for the links. I was unable to find it myself. I noticed though that each of these diagnostic tools that are exe or zip files are listed for hard drives that are IDE/ATA/SCSI. Since the hard drive model that I have in this laptop is: toshiba mk5055gsx, and on Google, it states it is a SATA connector inside the laptop, then would those diagnostic tools be compatible with the connection and work? I was wondering, if it makes you burn the image into a DVD, then how come it has you store the image on an external? Does it just create the image at that location and from there, burn the image as a bootable dvd off of the external image? Also, what file directories does the backup and restore option save? Does it save your custom folders outside of the "Libraries" (besides My Documents, Downloads, My Pictures, etc) or is it just the system folders that it saves? Hey thanks for the Amazon link. My laptop's model is Acer Aspire 7740-6656. Thanks for trying to look up on how to take it apart. Are these hard drive replacements something like the hard drives that you would install on a desktop where there's pin configurations that you have to set in order for the computer to know how to read it? Also, is there any way that I can back up and save the partition that's on my existing hard drive that has the Acer Diagnostic and System Recovery features that you can get into at boot up before it gets into Windows? They never gave me a CD for these things. I'm starting to dislike Acer, I've only had this for 2 years and the warranty is out and it's having memory or hard drive issues already, and they don't bother to give you cd's to install or recover from. I had an old Dell laptop running on Windows XP that's lasted for over 7 years and only the built in battery is busted now, but everything else is working fine.

The exe should be fine, worse case is it will say the drive is not compatible.

The System Image WILL work and to perfection. You need not worry about it so much.
It copies everything, and then it reinstalls everything.
The disc is simply the means to an end. It brings you to a place where you can restore a System Image. There would be no other way to do it if your OS was toast and didn't bootup. thus the need for the disc.
The disc itself takes 1 minute to burn and does not carry any of your data. It is generic.

Yes, you can save all the partitions on your present hard drive and then install them on your new one.

BTW: Acer don't make hard drives.
The only computer manufacturers who make their own hard drives are Toshiba and Fujitsu.

Quote from RockySosua : The disc itself takes 1 minute to burn and does not carry any of your data. It is generic. Yes, you can save all the partitions on your present hard drive and then install them on your new one.

Oh, I didn't know Acer doesn't make hard drives. This is the first time I've had a Toshiba hard drive, must be some bad luck because they've had good reviews on their external hard drives.


You said that the disc doesn't carry any of your data and it's generic. What do you mean by that? Does that mean if I had some file directories that were outside of the standard file structure of windows, like for instance, I created some temp folders on the main C:\ drive under different names, and did a restore and backup of the whole computer, it wouldn't backup those temp folders?

How do you save the built in partitions from the existing hard drive? Is that form creating the system image that it does that as well or do you have to do something else?

Quote from mikenmike0001 : Oh, I didn't know Acer doesn't make hard drives. This is the first time I've had a Toshiba hard drive, must be some bad luck because they've had good reviews on their external hard drives. You said that the disc doesn't carry any of your data and it's generic. What do you mean by that? Does that mean if I had some file directories that were outside of the standard file structure of windows, like for instance, I created some temp folders on the main C:\ drive under different names, and did a restore and backup of the whole computer, it wouldn't backup those temp folders? How do you save the built in partitions from the existing hard drive? Is that form creating the system image that it does that as well or do you have to do something else?

The System Image WILL work and to perfection. You need not worry about it so much.

PS: Did you notice that I sent you a PM 3 days ago?