My dads laptop only has a 80GB hard drive which is pretty much full now so he needs a new one. However he doesnt want anything to change he wants everything including the OS copied to a new bigger laptop drive. Is there a program to do this? using a removable hard drive housing or something? Or is he just going to have to do a dell recovery on a new hard drive? I know it's a noob question but i'm completely lost :S
You should be able to use an external hard drive, but if he only needs more room why not store the large files on an external hdd and keep all the OS settings as is? If you use the second external hdd to simply store everything you wouldn't need to worry about transferring files back and forth.
I'd suggest getting an external hdd (you can get some cheap and reliable ones around 500gb) and moving most of the current 80gb of files onto it. Free up enough hard disc space on the laptop so you have plenty of virtual memory.
Buying a new HDD for a laptop is an option, but replacing the old one can void warranty and some have severe spacing limitations.
I'd suggest getting an external hdd (you can get some cheap and reliable ones around 500gb) and moving most of the current 80gb of files onto it. Free up enough hard disc space on the laptop so you have plenty of virtual memory.
Buying a new HDD for a laptop is an option, but replacing the old one can void warranty and some have severe spacing limitations.
Last edited by AussieReaper (2009-09-15 06:20:07)
Not really. He can copy all the data and whatnot, but he will have to reinstall Windows onto the new hard drive and then just copy everything back over. You CAN save many program settings into INI files (or whatever the program decides to save them in) and just reload those after you have installed the program on the new drive.
Sucks, but that's the way it is.
Sucks, but that's the way it is.
Acronis or some other disk imaging software... there are a lot of free ones out there.
1. get Norton Goats or equiv.
2. get a SATA caddy.
3. clone to new drive
4. put new drive deep inside the laptop
5. You have aquired item: 80GB External.
2. get a SATA caddy.
3. clone to new drive
4. put new drive deep inside the laptop
5. You have aquired item: 80GB External.
My state was founded by Batman. Your opinion is invalid.
*edit; what cheez said
if i wanted to upgrade the size of my internal HDD on a laptop, i would buy an external, image the external from the laptop,
and then swap the discs.
bigger internal, plus you get an external drive for portable storage.
the OP said laptop - most laptops can only connect one HDD at a time.SonderKommando wrote:
Acronis or some other disk imaging software... there are a lot of free ones out there.
if i wanted to upgrade the size of my internal HDD on a laptop, i would buy an external, image the external from the laptop,
and then swap the discs.
bigger internal, plus you get an external drive for portable storage.
Last edited by burnzz (2009-09-15 06:49:27)
Just remember Windows won't like that. You'll probably have to reauthorize the copy of Windows, so make sure you have the CD key from the bottom of the laptop handy. May even have to call Microsoft, but it's not that big of a deal, just takes time.
I've always been afraid of those imaging programs, though. Clean install would certainly run snappier.
I've always been afraid of those imaging programs, though. Clean install would certainly run snappier.
I use Acronis at home and in the office. It works very well. The only thing I would caution you about is that it may not support your computer's IDE controller or the USB controller.
If it doesn't support the IDE controller, you could be in trouble, since it simply won't see any hard drive in the system to back up. I had a similar problem with Acronis and my old Asus board that was running a 975X chipset, but Acronis had me run some data dumps and they worked on the installer until it worked, so they are good that way.
If Acronis doesn't support the USB controller, it won't see an external drive connected to the system. In this case you would need to use a network connection. Acronis is very good at supporting most onboard wired NIC cards. In fact, I did an image of a new laptop just a couple of weeks ago and Acronis wouldn't see the USB drive, but supported the NIC, so I simply pushed the image to my work system and then copied it to my image storage device.
If it doesn't support the IDE controller, you could be in trouble, since it simply won't see any hard drive in the system to back up. I had a similar problem with Acronis and my old Asus board that was running a 975X chipset, but Acronis had me run some data dumps and they worked on the installer until it worked, so they are good that way.
If Acronis doesn't support the USB controller, it won't see an external drive connected to the system. In this case you would need to use a network connection. Acronis is very good at supporting most onboard wired NIC cards. In fact, I did an image of a new laptop just a couple of weeks ago and Acronis wouldn't see the USB drive, but supported the NIC, so I simply pushed the image to my work system and then copied it to my image storage device.
Last edited by Agent_Dung_Bomb (2009-09-15 08:41:19)
Xbone Stormsurgezz
If its a western digital drive, get Acronis for free!