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cloaked_wolf
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 10022
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My lappy HDD is too full (I keep struggling to keep even 400MB free on C:\ !!!) so I bought a new replacement one.
What's the easiest way to sort out the new HDD?
Reinstall everything from scratch?
Ghost everything across?
I just want to make sure there's nothing left behind/forgotten to copy across/install when I put the new HDD on.
_________________ He fights for the users.
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| Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:44 pm |
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bally199
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:52 pm
Posts: 1036
Location: Barnsley, South Yorkshire
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Use Acronis True Image. I don't know if it'll work (as laptops only have one IDE channel for HDDs), but if you've got a USB caddy or something along the lines of that, you could try it. Other than that, install fresh. Or just delete all your super secret squirrel porn.  _________________ Kimmotalk is where all the cool people hang.
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| Thu Apr 23, 2009 11:56 pm |
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JJW009
I haven't seen my friends in so long
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:58 pm
Posts: 8767
Location: behind the sofa
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If you have XP and a floppy, then you could use Windows Backup. If it's Vista, then you don't need a floppy because you use the Vista CD to boot from.
Last time I did this I used Acronis or something similar. It came free on the PCpro cover disk. Backed up to an external USB drive, created a recovery boot CD, swapped the drives and recovered. It really was quite easy. It talks your through it.
However, it's always good to re-install. You can get a USB - IDE adaptor for a few pounds and recover your stuff that way, or just copy the whole thing to a USB drive. It really depends how much time you have to get it all back together!
_________________jonbwfc's law: "In any forum thread someone will, no matter what the subject, mention Firefly." When you're feeling too silly for x404, youRwired.net
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| Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:00 am |
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cloaked_wolf
What's a life?
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 8:46 pm
Posts: 10022
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^^^Unfortunately the laptop comes with USB and DVD-burner only, no FDD.
I have a USB caddy for when I had to pull files off my sister's broken laptop so could easily use that. Was gonna spend some time in a coupla weeks when I have annual leave.
_________________He fights for the users.
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| Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:07 pm |
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l3v1ck
What's a life?
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2009 10:21 am
Posts: 12700
Location: The Right Side of the Pennines (metaphorically & geographically)
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That would be my suggestion too. Though I'm not sure if you could enlarge the single partition or whether the extra capacity would have to be a second partition.
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| Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:22 pm |
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trigen_killer
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Thu Apr 23, 2009 6:37 pm
Posts: 835
Location: North Wales UK
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I am pretty sure that with True Image you can either recreate a partition as an exact duplicate or simply carry the data over to the new system and give it room to stretch it's legs across the whole drive. Clone would copy the drive, but if you simply restore an image to another drive it will only put back the data. I think that's right, but I can't check at the moment because I don't have True Image installed on this system *logs off to install True Image* _________________My lowest spec operational system- AT desktop case, 200W AT PSU, Jetway TX98B Socket 7, Intel Pentium 75Mhz, 2x16MB EDO RAM, 270MB Quantum Maverick HDD, ATI Rage II+ graphics, Soundblaster 16 CT2230, MS-DOS/Win 3.11 My Flickr
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| Sat Apr 25, 2009 8:27 am |
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JohnSheridan
Doesn't have much of a life
Joined: Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:10 pm
Posts: 1057
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Acronis True Image Home should allow you to "clone" the hard drive providing both are connected to the laptop at the same time.
Last time I looked you could download their software on a 15day trial basis.
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| Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:45 pm |
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