Harddrive upgrade

[Guest]

I have a question. Better to ask before having a real trouble.
My laptop's original harddrive is only 30GB, soon I'm planning to buy a new
HDD of 100GB and replace the existing one.
The question is: is it possible to "copy/clone" the old HDD to a new one, so
that after putting a new HDD into my laptop ( as a master drive), my system
(winXP) will work with no re/installation needed?
I mean there is winXP+40 more applications and utillities to reinstall if i
can't "copy/clone" the harddrive. Too much work...
While copying my old HDD, i would use an external case for my new HDD and
connect via USB.
I have an original CDs from laptop manufacturer, winXP installation CD
included, saying it's for 1-2 CPUs. But it's OEM, so i'm not sure.
So, is it possible to clone a HDD, or I have to take a day off for
reinstalling?
Thank U.

-martin-

 

[peter]

Yes it is possible to clone a hard drive
If you look on the hard drive Manufacturers website they will have free
cloning utilities for that purpose.
peter

 

[JohnG]

I have a question. Better to ask before having a real trouble.
My laptop's original harddrive is only 30GB, soon I'm planning to buy a new
HDD of 100GB and replace the existing one.
The question is: is it possible to "copy/clone" the old HDD to a new one, so
that after putting a new HDD into my laptop ( as a master drive), my system
(winXP) will work with no re/installation needed?
I mean there is winXP+40 more applications and utillities to reinstall if i
can't "copy/clone" the harddrive. Too much work...
While copying my old HDD, i would use an external case for my new HDD and
connect via USB.
I have an original CDs from laptop manufacturer, winXP installation CD
included, saying it's for 1-2 CPUs. But it's OEM, so i'm not sure.
So, is it possible to clone a HDD, or I have to take a day off for
reinstalling?
Thank U.

-martin-

You can use Symantec's Ghost
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10
I use Ghost 2003 that is a DOS clone/backup environment and comes with
the product. You can clone the old disk to the new and it will give
you an identical disk but with a bunch of free space. I believe Ghost
2003 supports USB drives, but I use connectors that allow you to
connect a laptop drive to IDE and actually do this lind of stuff on my
desktop system.
http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=906&sku=17705

Ghost will also work over a network, but if your network hardware is
not fully supported by Ghost, it can be a pain to set up.
Hope this helps!

 

[wyadvd]

I have a question. Better to ask before having a real trouble.
My laptop's original harddrive is only 30GB, soon I'm planning to buy a new
HDD of 100GB and replace the existing one.
The question is: is it possible to "copy/clone" the old HDD to a new one, so
that after putting a new HDD into my laptop ( as a master drive), my system
(winXP) will work with no re/installation needed?
I mean there is winXP+40 more applications and utillities to reinstall if i
can't "copy/clone" the harddrive. Too much work...
While copying my old HDD, i would use an external case for my new HDD and
connect via USB.
I have an original CDs from laptop manufacturer, winXP installation CD
included, saying it's for 1-2 CPUs. But it's OEM, so i'm not sure.
So, is it possible to clone a HDD, or I have to take a day off for
reinstalling?
Thank U.

-martin-

 

[wyadvd]

http://ghost.radified.com/

read the above incuding all refereced websites etc its the best

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I have a question. Better to ask before having a real trouble.
My laptop's original harddrive is only 30GB, soon I'm planning to buy a new
HDD of 100GB and replace the existing one.
The question is: is it possible to "copy/clone" the old HDD to a new one, so
that after putting a new HDD into my laptop ( as a master drive), my system
(winXP) will work with no re/installation needed?
I mean there is winXP+40 more applications and utillities to reinstall if i
can't "copy/clone" the harddrive. Too much work...
While copying my old HDD, i would use an external case for my new HDD and
connect via USB.
I have an original CDs from laptop manufacturer, winXP installation CD
included, saying it's for 1-2 CPUs. But it's OEM, so i'm not sure.
So, is it possible to clone a HDD, or I have to take a day off for
reinstalling?
Thank U.

-martin-

You need a program like Partition Magic that can clone the partition
and then resize it. You'll almost certainly also need an external
case for the HD to use during the cloning operation.

I have done this before, the hardest part of the whole operation being
figuring out where they hid the HD in the laptop.