How to duplicate hard drives easily ?

[artis sideley]

I'm going to replace the hard disk in place in my notebook (Win XP Pro) by a brand new one. I just don't want to waste
time in reinstalling OS, apps and restoring all my work files into it. I wonder if there is a possibility to replicate
the contents of the operating hard drive into the new hard disk by USB transfer, so that I will only need to physically
replace the old with the new , then restart the computer, to have my usual working environment ready.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm going to replace the hard disk in place in my notebook (Win XP Pro) by a brand new one. I just don't want to waste
time in reinstalling OS, apps and restoring all my work files into it. I wonder if there is a possibility to replicate
the contents of the operating hard drive into the new hard disk by USB transfer, so that I will only need to
physically replace the old with the new , then restart the computer, to have my usual working environment ready.

Yes you can.

Gets a bit more tricky with a laptop, essentially because its not as easy to have both
drives visible to the system at once as it is with a desktop system, but its still possible.

One approach is to get a USB cable that allows you to put the new drive on that
and then use something like Acronis True Image to copy the entire old drive to the
new one. You then take the new drive off the USB cable and install it in the laptop.

You need to get the right USB cable for the new drive but they are widely available on ebay etc.

 

[terryc]

I'm going to replace the hard disk in place in my notebook (Win XP Pro) by a brand new one. I just don't want to waste
time in reinstalling OS, apps and restoring all my work files into it. I wonder if there is a possibility to replicate
the contents of the operating hard drive into the new hard disk by USB transfer, so that I will only need to physically
replace the old with the new , then restart the computer, to have my usual working environment ready.

Well, under *nix, you'd mount the two drives in that machine and use dd
dd if=/dev/hdb of=/dev/hdc

 

[Artis Sideley]

thanks,

By the way, I'm wondering if softwares are going to work well on the
new hard drive: If i'm not mistaken, some software installations need
relevant hard disk serial number to work. What would happen if
installations don't match the serial number of the hard disk they are
in ?

 

[Rod Speed]

By the way, I'm wondering if softwares are going to work well on the new hard drive:

Yes it will.

If i'm not mistaken, some software installations need relevant hard disk serial number to work.

Nope, you are mistaken.

What would happen if installations don't match the serial number of the hard disk they are in ?

It'll work fine.

 

[bluefin]

I'm afraid that the restoration of original hard disk that has XP
installed will have to be re-installed if the hard disk hard coded
number is different even if both new and old hard disk come from the
same manufacturer.

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm afraid that the restoration of original hard disk that has XP
installed will have to be re-installed if the hard disk hard coded
number is different even if both new and old hard disk come from the
same manufacturer.

How odd that I have managed to clone drives running XP fine, repeatedly.