How would I Clone to a bigger Hard Drive in a XP Laptop

C

casey.o

My laptop puter only has a 40g drive. I'd like to at least double that.
As soon as I find a deal on ebay, I'll probably buy one, but I'm not
sure how to clone the drive in a laptop. On a desktop computer I can
just plug in a second drive, and clone it. There is no place to plug a
second drive on a laptop.

I DO NOT have any install disks for this puter. It has XP Pro sp3. I
only have a XP home install CD. Plus I will need all the drivers and
stuff for this Lenovo laptop. I have two thoughts, but I'm not sure if
either will work.

1. Clone it to a USB external hard drive. But how can I boot it to
clone the drive back, with the new blank HD?

2. Buy one of those cables that can connect to any HD, and plug into
USB, then clone the current drive to the new drive (using XXclone).
This seems like the better option, except I will have to buy the cable
too, but it will get used again, so I'll buy it.

Will this work? In other words, once I plug in the cloned drive (new
bigger one), will it boot right up? Will I have to re-activate XP?

-OR-

Is it possible to boot the laptop from my XP home CD, then use the USB
ports to clone it back? I kind of doubt that????

I will also need to determine if the drive is IDE or SATA? How do I
know that?

There are tow rows of 21 pins (or maybe 20, it's hard to count them),
with one center pin missing. Then there are 4 more pins separated from
the others (power I assume). I'm very familiar with Desktop drives, but
not these laptop ones.

The drive I have now, is a hitachi model hts541040g9at00
40GB, 5400 rpm ATA/ IDE.

I guess I just answered my own question, regarding the type. it's an
IDE. Now it's just a matter of getting one, and cloning it.
 
P

Paul

My laptop puter only has a 40g drive. I'd like to at least double that.
As soon as I find a deal on ebay, I'll probably buy one, but I'm not
sure how to clone the drive in a laptop. On a desktop computer I can
just plug in a second drive, and clone it. There is no place to plug a
second drive on a laptop.

I DO NOT have any install disks for this puter. It has XP Pro sp3. I
only have a XP home install CD. Plus I will need all the drivers and
stuff for this Lenovo laptop. I have two thoughts, but I'm not sure if
either will work.

1. Clone it to a USB external hard drive. But how can I boot it to
clone the drive back, with the new blank HD?

2. Buy one of those cables that can connect to any HD, and plug into
USB, then clone the current drive to the new drive (using XXclone).
This seems like the better option, except I will have to buy the cable
too, but it will get used again, so I'll buy it.

Will this work? In other words, once I plug in the cloned drive (new
bigger one), will it boot right up? Will I have to re-activate XP?

-OR-

Is it possible to boot the laptop from my XP home CD, then use the USB
ports to clone it back? I kind of doubt that????

I will also need to determine if the drive is IDE or SATA? How do I
know that?

There are tow rows of 21 pins (or maybe 20, it's hard to count them),
with one center pin missing. Then there are 4 more pins separated from
the others (power I assume). I'm very familiar with Desktop drives, but
not these laptop ones.

The drive I have now, is a hitachi model hts541040g9at00
40GB, 5400 rpm ATA/ IDE.

I guess I just answered my own question, regarding the type. it's an
IDE. Now it's just a matter of getting one, and cloning it.
Click to expand...

Buy the 2.5" USB adapter.
Clone.
Remove hard drive from inside laptop.
Install new hard drive.
Boot new hard drive.
Done.

If the laptop was SATA, you could do some cloning work
in a desktop computer with the SATA connectors. But chances
are your hard drive in the laptop is a 44 pin IDE drive.

Make sure you know what kind of drive is in there, before
you go shopping for the cable. You can get 3-in-1 cables,
which will handle anything, at least, as long as they come
with the external power adapter to power a 3.5" drive. There
may be other cables or solutions that handle fewer drive types.
Make sure you know the drive type, before you begin. This
can even be tracked down, by running Everest or a similar
utility, getting the model number of the hard drive, and
looking up the details of that model number on the web.

Some drives in a laptop, they fit an adapter plug
of some sort, over the I/O connector. And this can
be confusing if you don't recognize that can be removed
and the real connector is underneath. The purpose of
some of these adapters, is strain relief, and the usage
of a connector that allows flex in a particular direction.
That's so if the laptop received rough treatment, the
drive connector is not guaranteed to snap off.

Paul
 
P

Paul

CRNG said:
On Sat, 29 Mar 2014 17:02:20 -0500, (e-mail address removed) wrote in


I don't think I've ever seen one of these. Anyone have a link to one
so I can view it?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

This is a 3-in-1 kit. One of the pictures on the Newegg page is wrong,
and the CablesToGo site has a corrected picture.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812196455

http://www.cablestogo.com/product/30504

Package Contents

• USB to IDE/SATA Adapter
• 5in Serial ATA 7-pin M/M Cable
• 5V 1A/12V 1A Power Supply (supports both SATA Power and 4-Pin Molex Power)
• Power Cable (for power supply)
• User Manual

This is the user manual. It took a Google search to find it, and
it wasn't clear on the site itself, how to get here.

http://www.cablestogo.com/docs/manuals/30001_-_40000/30504.pdf

This is copied text from the manual.

For 3.5" IDE drive:
-Connect the 4-pin molex power plug to the drive's power receptacle.
-Plug the drive directly to the 40-pin connector on the adapter
(it is keyed, and will only fit one way).

For 2.5" drive:
-Plug the drive directly to the 44-pin connector on the adapter
(it is keyed, and will only fit one way).

For SATA drive:
-Connect the 15-pin SATA (flat) power plug
to the SATA drive's power receptacle.
-Connect the Serial-ATA data cable from the
SATA drive to the receptacle on the adapter.

This means:

44 pin IDE (2.5" drive) is powered from the USB cable (5V @ 500mA max).
40 pin IDE (3.5" drive) is powered from the included adapter.
SATA (2.5" laptop or 3.5" desktop) is powered from the included adapter.

It's important to analyze the kit, to determine where the
power comes from. If an older 44 pin IDE happened to draw
more than 500mA at startup, the drive might not be detected
as it would spin down again.

Some of those adapters, I've seen ones with a power input connector
so that the drive power is more often derived from the power adapter.

The weakest part of 3-in-1 kits, is the quality of the power
adapter. Since they keep trying to drop the price, they
started to use lower quality wall adapters at one point.
This causes a significant dropout rate on the products and
soon all of them were getting poor reviews. Before buying
a 3-in-1 with wall adapter, read the customer reviews carefully
to see if the wall adapter is a "toaster/smoker".

The above C2G, makes the mistake of using a rotary switch
in the middle of the power output cable. While this is a great
idea, those rotary switches (cam presses contacts) are not very
reliable. And one reviewer feels the reason his drives no longer
spin up, is that switch is failed. If that were to happen, I'd cut
on either side of the switch portion of the cable, and get a DPST rocker
switch from Radio Shack and rewire the thing. You would wire through
the ground (grounds not connected via switch and ground is always
connected), while the two poles of the switch gate the +5V and +12V
power wires.

If the power adapter failed, I'd probably throw the whole lot away.
You're not likely to find a dual output 5V/12V adapter at Radio
Shack to take its place.

*******

This one is not a 3-in-1, and just handles one drive type.
This cable handles 2.5" SATA only, and the hard drive is
USB bus powered. If plugged to a USB2 port, the recommended
current limit is 5V @ 500ma. The USB3 standard allows more
USB current to flow, and has a higher limit. No power
adapter is included. So we know this one is always bus powered,
and consequently, is for 2.5" drives only. While you could
purchase some kind of SATA to IDE adapter to slap on the end
of it, that would be silly. If you really need to operate with
all drive types, buy a 3-in-1 kit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812400542

*******

I've also just seen a lay-flat piece of plastic with a drive
connector on one end, which is one of those cables, with a
tray you can rest the hard drive in. That's similar to a
hard drive dock, only with a horizontal orientation instead
of the vertical orientation of a HDD dock.

(Adapter powered, vertically oriented SATA dock for 2.5 and 3.5
inch SATA only. No IDE on this setup.)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182237

The combinations are endless, but there are subtle differences
in terms of where the power comes from on each setup. I would
prefer the setup always got power from a wall adapter, but that's
just me. I don't really like USB bus powered hard drive solutions
(for 2.5" disks) because of the chance there won't be enough
power to spin up the disk.

Paul
 
C

casey.o

Try this one :

http://www.idealo.co.uk/cat/6392F802253/hard-drive-enclosures.html
Click to expand...
That's posh, with a housing. I think casey.o had more in mind something
like http://ebay.eu/QDxpR4 (3.5" IDE is towards you [and would probably
need a PSU], 2.5" IDE away from you, SATA on top).
Click to expand...

Yea, I would not need a cable with a case. Those case types were
popular some years ago, because a person could make an external USB
portable harddrive, but these days you can buy a complete USB harddrive
already in a case, for not much more than those cases cost. The cases
did come with a power supply, but as long as the PS in the computer has
enough wattage, it can handle those USB drives.

I do plan to get one of these cables, but I'll have to find one on ebay
that's in the US. I've had too many problems in the past ordering stuff
friom other countries.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads

Tale Of Woe Part II. 3
Need to Clone Laptop HDD 35
stuck cloning hd to bigger hd 4
Image Restore Part II 5
Can't boot clone after Paragon Drive Copy 11 Pro 5
Upgrading Hard Drive in XP using Ghost 2003 Clone 4
XP Install Hard Drive Prob 6
Xcopy - can this clone a new hard drive from an old hard drive? 8

Top