back up softwear

[esa193]

my hard drive is going bad
now there sending me a new 500G hard drive
can i some how transfer everything including os installed programs to the new hard drive?

 

[eyeCpc]

If the new drive is identical you can use a software like Acronis to create a disk image. You'll have to see new mbr entries on the new drive in order to see Windows once the image is on the drive.

The preferred method is usually seeing a fresh install of everything once the new drive is in to prevent any problems. Then you simply restore all files and settings.