Help: Possible Hardware Failure

[vulcanlogician]

So I have multiple issue with (possibly) hardware:

Hard drive makes grinding noise.

My monitor blinks off, and my computer makes this two-note tone (sometimes it just blinks off with no tone).

I upgraded my graphics card, and my power supply is not as good as my graphics card wants it to be. (How much of an issue is that?)

Also, my computer has straight up restarted without being prompted twice. When this happens, I get stuck on the Bios screen and I have to manually power down and restart to get it to fully start up.

***

I want to get software that monitors (like internal temp, etc) this stuff, preferably free, but when I google that I get all kinds of answers. What's the best software for that? I figured I'd get an objective, non-biased answer here.

I also would like to get an external hard drive that plugs into USB to back up my current hard drive. Does something like that exist, and what is it called? (Googling gives me USB drives and things I'm not sure of.)

I'm an idiot when it comes to computers. I am asking this stuff here because Google is perilous, and people are trying to sell stuff.

[emjay]

I wish I could help with your hardware problems, but I have no idea what that could be about, nor do I have any idea about monitoring software I'm afraid, but as to the last thing... when my PS4's hard drive started playing up I replaced it with a new one and bought a "ugreen USB HDD enclosure" (from amazon) to store the old one... it basically turns a regular hard drive into an external hard drive that can be plugged in and used via USB. Meant that I was able to reformat it (since I gave up trying to figure out how to interface with its PlayStation filesystem to recover stuff) and use it again as just a normal external drive for backup on my laptop (ie whatever was wrong with it before wasn't catastrophic, it was still usable afterwards). Pretty cool I thought... I was amazed that such a thing existed, and pretty cheap as well, about £15, though of course you'd need a hard drive as well. So just putting that out there as one option, but there are probably many others.

[AFTT47]

Upgrading a graphics card is probably not a good idea for someone who is "an idiot when it comes to computers." For starters, a new graphics card may not even result in any performance increase if you PCIE bus or CPU can't keep up with it. Secondly, your PSU needs to have the proper power connections for it and must be able to supply it with all the current it needs. It sounds like this may not be the case.

You're still using a mechanical hard drive? A solid state drive would be better. Grinding noises are definitely not good. You can back up data with a USB flash drive. They are available just about everywhere and are relatively inexpensive. You may need several depending on how much you have to back up.

[vulcanlogician]

Upgrading a graphics card is probably not a good idea for someone who is "an idiot when it comes to computers." For starters, a new graphics card may not even result in any performance increase if you PCIE bus or CPU can't keep up with it. Secondly, your PSU needs to have the proper power connections for it and must be able to supply it with all the current it needs. It sounds like this may not be the case.

You're still using a mechanical hard drive? A solid state drive would be better. Grinding noises are definitely not good. You can back up data with a USB flash drive. They are available just about everywhere and are relatively inexpensive. You may need several depending on how much you have to back up.

My graphics card vastly improved my performance. I installed it six months ago. But now performance is beginning to wane. I meant to upgrade the power supply but everything was working fine so I figured it was okay.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Water heaters, I can help you with. Computers, not so much.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

At risk of great personal injury, I have to ask if you turned it off and back on again.

[vulcanlogician]

Okay, so I found a solid state external hard drive. Does anyone have any recommendations for software to do the copying? It seems like I can just do that with software that already exists on my computer. Like, I remember doing this years and years ago and not needing software.

Should I do that or get software?

[arewethereyet]

Okay, so I found a solid state external hard drive. Does anyone have any recommendations for software to do the copying? It seems like I can just do that with software that already exists on my computer. Like, I remember doing this years and years ago and not needing software.

Should I do that or get software?

The external hard drive I have works just like putting files on a flash drive. Check to see what the drive you are looking at suggests.

[AFTT47]

Windows Explorer can copy files. You already have it.

[vulcanlogician]

Windows Explorer can copy files. You already have it.

Cool. 

I guess my next question is, let's say I use Windows explorer to copy my entire C drive to this new drive. If my current hard drive fails, can I just plug in my new one and have it boot up and everything and use it until I get a replacement internal drive?