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Upgrading laptop hard drive--how? Hiawatha Bray 01-22-2006
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Posted by Hiawatha Bray on January 22, 2006, 9:50 pm
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 I have Windows XP installed on the old drive, and I don't have the disk. I
want to move my current installation onto a larger laptop drive. I guess I
need to image the old drive and copy it perfectly onto the new one. Anybody
know how this is done? Thanks.



Posted by Kevin on January 22, 2006, 10:48 pm
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>I have Windows XP installed on the old drive, and I don't have the disk. I
>want to move my current installation onto a larger laptop drive. I guess I
>need to image the old drive and copy it perfectly onto the new one.
>Anybody know how this is done? Thanks.

Yeah. Imaging software. And a place to put the imaged hard drive. Like an
external hard drive or a friends computer you can borrow to hold the image
for transferring.



Posted by Bert Hyman on January 22, 2006, 10:57 pm
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> I have Windows XP installed on the old drive, and I don't have the disk.
> I want to move my current installation onto a larger laptop drive. I
> guess I need to image the old drive and copy it perfectly onto the new
> one. Anybody know how this is done? Thanks.

Programs like Acronis True Image and Norton's Ghost are used to do this.

I moved XP Pro from my ThinkPad's 40GB 4500RPM disk to a new 60GB 7200RPM
disk using True Image.

I got a cheap external USB case, temporarily mounted the new drive in it,
transferred the contents of the old drive, swapped them and that was it.

--
Bert Hyman        St. Paul, MN        bert@iphouse.com

Posted by Larry Weil on January 22, 2006, 11:13 pm
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> I have Windows XP installed on the old drive, and I don't have the disk. I
> want to move my current installation onto a larger laptop drive. I guess I
> need to image the old drive and copy it perfectly onto the new one. Anybody
> know how this is done? Thanks.

I used Norton Ghost to make a backup for the old drive on a USB external
hard drive, then I restored back to the new drive from that. The first
startup on the new drive took a while until Windows found the driver for
the new drive, then I restarted and everything was good. But, it helped
even more to then defrag the new disk, using Norton Speed Disk, in
order to place the system files on the first part of the disk.

The only down side is since this laptop only has USB 1.1 ports, it took
14 hours each to backup and restore, for 11 GB of data. If your machine
has USB 2.0 it should be much faster.

BTW, I donšt see your column in The Boston Globe as much any more. I
always looked forward to seeing it most every Monday.

--
Larry Weil
Lake Wobegone, NH

Posted by Hiawatha Bray on January 22, 2006, 11:55 pm
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Alas, the column is no more. But I'm still flailing away here at the Globe,
banging out lots of news stories....thanks for the kind words.

It's an old USB 1.1 laptop. This oughta be...fun?


>
>> I have Windows XP installed on the old drive, and I don't have the disk.
>> I
>> want to move my current installation onto a larger laptop drive. I guess
>> I
>> need to image the old drive and copy it perfectly onto the new one.
>> Anybody
>> know how this is done? Thanks.
>
> I used Norton Ghost to make a backup for the old drive on a USB external
> hard drive, then I restored back to the new drive from that. The first
> startup on the new drive took a while until Windows found the driver for
> the new drive, then I restarted and everything was good. But, it helped
> even more to then defrag the new disk, using Norton Speed Disk, in
> order to place the system files on the first part of the disk.
>
> The only down side is since this laptop only has USB 1.1 ports, it took
> 14 hours each to backup and restore, for 11 GB of data. If your machine
> has USB 2.0 it should be much faster.
>
> BTW, I donšt see your column in The Boston Globe as much any more. I
> always looked forward to seeing it most every Monday.
>
> --
> Larry Weil
> Lake Wobegone, NH



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