Harddrive upgrade

Raj_p

Raj_p

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Hey guys, im looking for some advice on how to upgrade the HD on my laptop.

I know how to swap the drives over, but is there a way to transfer all the contents over including the operating software?

I dont have the original vista disk or the recovery disk with all the drivers on.

can i connect the new HD to my laptop(via a caddy) and just copy all the files from my current hd to the new one?

Sorry if its a daft question...

Thanks,
Raj
 
you cant just copy, youll miss a load of hidden info such as the system registry.

youll need a disk imaging/cloning application, there are several free utils out there but your new HD must be larger than the old one (as i found out when trying to move to an SSD lol)
 
neil_g said:
you cant just copy, youll miss a load of hidden info such as the system registry.

youll need a disk imaging/cloning application, there are several free utils out there but your new HD must be larger than the old one (as i found out when trying to move to an SSD lol)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, im upgrading to a 500gb from a 250gb. I will search google for some software now

:)
 
Another possibility, if you have the disc with the OS on it.

OTHERS WILL SAY IF THIS WON’T WORK, but I don’t see why not.

Buy the smallest hard drive you can find (probably this will be about 100 Gig now); it should not cost a lot.

Put it in the PC and take out the current HD.

Do a new installation of the OS on to this new small drive.

Make sure you get all the updates for the OS, which could take a while and a few reboots.

Put the old HD back in and call it the D, E, whatever, drive. Delete all the OS from that drive and you’ll have a fresh installation of the OS on the new drive and have freed up some space on the old drive, OR

buy another big HD and put that into the PC and keep the current one (minus the old copy of the OS) in a caddy as an external back up.
 
I upgraded mine from 320Gb to 750Gb last night. I used Casper 6.0 it took around 7 hours. Worked flawlessly.
 
It's a laptop
 
tirc83 said:
I upgraded mine from 320Gb to 750Gb last night. I used Casper 6.0 it took around 7 hours. Worked flawlessly.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, i will give it ago....

Just waiting for a fellow TP'er so i get the back up HD off him, just incase it all goes pearshaped
 
Not sure how you go on a bout imaging a drive thats using SATA2 Laptop drives that need to be set to raid in the bios.

I've done a couple of Acers where no matter what I tried I could get Ghost or Powerquest drive image to work properly.
 
" Another possibility, if you have the disc with the OS on it.

OTHERS WILL SAY IF THIS WON’T WORK, but I don’t see why not.

Buy the smallest hard drive you can find (probably this will be about 100 Gig now); it should not cost a lot.

Put it in the PC and take out the current HD.

Do a new installation of the OS on to this new small drive.

Make sure you get all the updates for the OS, which could take a while and a few reboots.

Put the old HD back in and call it the D, E, whatever, drive. Delete all the OS from that drive and you’ll have a fresh installation of the OS on the new drive and have freed up some space on the old drive, .................".



admirable said:
It's a laptop
Click to expand...

Indeed so and never seen one with two HDD's so far.

He doesn't have a OS disc either!
 
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Mikesphotaes said:
Indeed so and never seen one with two HDD's so far.

He doesn't have a OS disc either!
Click to expand...


You do get laptops with dual hard drives but I don't think that's the case here.
 
Mikesphotaes said:
" Another possibility, if you have the disc with the OS on it.

OTHERS WILL SAY IF THIS WON’T WORK, but I don’t see why not.

Buy the smallest hard drive you can find (probably this will be about 100 Gig now); it should not cost a lot.

Put it in the PC and take out the current HD.

Do a new installation of the OS on to this new small drive.

Make sure you get all the updates for the OS, which could take a while and a few reboots.

Put the old HD back in and call it the D, E, whatever, drive. Delete all the OS from that drive and you’ll have a fresh installation of the OS on the new drive and have freed up some space on the old drive, .................".





Indeed so and never seen one with two HDD's so far.

He doesn't have a OS disc either!
Click to expand...

I do have another laptop with twin HD's an Acer.....

But the one im upgrading is a single hard drive one
 
Raj_p said:
I do have another laptop with twin HD's an Acer.....

But the one im upgrading is a single hard drive one
Click to expand...

Clone jobby then, as Neil said earlier.

You certainly can't get rid of the OS, as suggested in post 4, because it will be in use!
 
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Thanks for the info, im just hoping the other TP'er gets intouch today, so i can crack on with this.
 
As you dont have a os disc, have a look at your hard disk drives on your computer. You may find your HD is in two parts, typically OS (C:) and RECOVERY (D:). The recovery D part of your hard drive would only be about 10gb.

If so that would be what the manufacturer would of put on there, You would need to copy that drive to a disc and you now have a OS disc.

As far as I am aware you cant just copy your OS from the old HD to the new. As Neil said above you will lose loads of hidden info.

I have been looking into all this over the last couple of days as I currently have a error code which refers to my HD. Thinking my HD might give up the ghost any day I went and bought a external HD yesterday and transfered all my files on to this. If I need to replace my HD though I will still need the OS disc.

Hope this helps.
 
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neil_g said:
you cant just copy, youll miss a load of hidden info such as the system registry.

youll need a disk imaging/cloning application, there are several free utils out there but your new HD must be larger than the old one (as i found out when trying to move to an SSD lol)
Click to expand...


:agree:

make sure you clone the right way, or you will wipe the old disk with a blank image, (done that before :bonk: )
 
sounds like the perfect time to ditch vista and upgrade to windows 7.
You will benifit from a clean install, and a much nicer OS.
 
Good advice guys. I have been thinking about win7, but cant justify the cost at the min as im going on holiday next week :)
 
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