New Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter MedRxman
  • Start date Start date
M

MedRxman

I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160 Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed partitions
from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The image was created
with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on the new
HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability to use the PC
RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have to be
reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
 
my suggestion is to leave
the factory hard drive in place

and instead use an external
hard drive for the additional
space your system needs.

by relocating many of your
user files to the external drive

you will free up disk space
on the internal hard drive.

--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MedRxman said:
I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160 Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed
partitions from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The image
was created with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on the
new HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability to use
the PC RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have to be
reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Click to expand...
 
That is sort of a stupid suggestion for a laptop.
db said:
my suggestion is to leave
the factory hard drive in place

and instead use an external
hard drive for the additional
space your system needs.

by relocating many of your
user files to the external drive

you will free up disk space
on the internal hard drive.

--
db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces
- @Hotmail.com
- nntp Postologist
~ "share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MedRxman said:
I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160 Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed
partitions from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The image
was created with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on the
new HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability to use
the PC RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have to
be reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160
Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed
partitions from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The
image was created with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on
the new HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability
to use the PC RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have
to be reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
----- [boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Click to expand...

I did this on an Asus EeePC, I installed a 320 GB HD instead of the stock
160 GB. I used the Acronis True Image Western Digital Edition to clone
the drive.

It seems that I still have the restoration feature from the hidden
partition when I press F9 at boot (I didn't try it all the way because
I've upgraded to Seven). When I press F9 at boot, the Win XP splash
screen appears (instead of Seven) and it brings me to a screen where I
can restore or Cancel.

Be aware that Acronis True Image wants to proportionnally resize all
partitions to the new HD when using the AUTO mode, but I didn't want
that, I wanted the hidden partitions to stay the same size so I used the
feature in Acronis True Image cloning to manually tell it the size of the
partitions, it was a little confusing but I found how it worked.

I cloned all partitions, replaced the hard disk and it booted like usual,
instead my C and D disks were larger. No need to touch boot.ini.

HTH
 
I use Acronis TI and with that certainly the complete existing drive
(Partitions) can be imaged to a new HD, and whilst doing so you can expand
eg C to a larger size
 
MedRxman said:
I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160 Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed
partitions from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The image
was created with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on the
new HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability to use
the PC RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have to be
reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Click to expand...

Probably yes but you won't know for sure until you've tried. On the other
hand - if you have an image that does exactly what you need then you no
longer need the Dell factory image. Your current image would give you
exactly what you want whereas the Dell factory restore would throw you back
to Adam and Eve and would probably destroy all existing partitions.

If you do not have a Dell factory restore partition at the start of the disk
then you must change "partition(2)" to "partition(1)" in two places in
boot.ini.
 
Thanks for the partioning number change advise.

I would only use the PC RESTORE partition in the event I wanted to sell/give
away the laptop.

Thanks again, your suggestions have always been good.

BL
Pegasus said:
MedRxman said:
I am planning on installing a larger HDD in my Dell Inspiron 5160 Laptop.

I have an image of the current HDD that includes the 2 installed
partitions from Dell (Diagnostics and the PC Restore Partition. The image
was created with Drive Image 7.

I have used the image to re-install the C Drive several times but was
wondering if the other 2 partitions would be able to be installed on the
new HDD from the image program so I would still have the ability to use
the PC RESTORE function from DELL.

One partition is FAT, one Partition is FAT 32 and the C drive is NTFS


If I can't and only can restore the C drive, would the boot.ini have to
be reconfigured?
The current boot.ini is:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
Click to expand...

Probably yes but you won't know for sure until you've tried. On the other
hand - if you have an image that does exactly what you need then you no
longer need the Dell factory image. Your current image would give you
exactly what you want whereas the Dell factory restore would throw you
back to Adam and Eve and would probably destroy all existing partitions.

If you do not have a Dell factory restore partition at the start of the
disk then you must change "partition(2)" to "partition(1)" in two places
in boot.ini.
Click to expand...
 
Back
Top