Replace Laptop Hard Drive

[Marty]

I need to replace my laptop hard drive with a larger one. I am looking for
software that will allow my to image the hard drive to multiple DVDs then I
can replace the hard drive and restore the image to the new drive. Reboot
and everything is the same except I now have more free space. I tried Norton
Ghost v10.0 but the "Copy My Hard Drive" feature will not allow coping to
any removeable media. Because it is a laptop I can not install the new drive
as a slave either. I can only have one hard drive in the laptop at a time.

Thanks,
-Marty

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

Get Acronis True Image Home edition. www.acronis.com. You can use it to save
an Image to your DVDs and then later restore it.

 

[Ron Martell]

I need to replace my laptop hard drive with a larger one. I am looking for
software that will allow my to image the hard drive to multiple DVDs then I
can replace the hard drive and restore the image to the new drive. Reboot
and everything is the same except I now have more free space. I tried Norton
Ghost v10.0 but the "Copy My Hard Drive" feature will not allow coping to
any removeable media. Because it is a laptop I can not install the new drive
as a slave either. I can only have one hard drive in the laptop at a time.

Thanks,
-Marty

Check out Acronis True Image (www.acronis.com)

Also do you have another computer which is, or could be, networked
with your laptop? If so then you could use the imaging software to
save an image over the network to the other computer, and restore it
the same way. At least you can with Acronis.

Another possibility is to purchase an external hard drive (USB) and
use that to save the image of your laptop's hard drive.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I need to replace my laptop hard drive with a larger one. I am looking for
software that will allow my to image the hard drive to multiple DVDs then I
can replace the hard drive and restore the image to the new drive. Reboot
and everything is the same except I now have more free space. I tried
Norton Ghost v10.0 but the "Copy My Hard Drive" feature will not allow
coping to any removeable media. Because it is a laptop I can not install
the new drive as a slave either. I can only have one hard drive in the
laptop at a time.

Thanks,
-Marty

Yet another possibility consists of buying a $10.00 adapter
that lets you connect your laptop disk to a standard desktop
IDE port. You could then use Ghost to create your copy.

 

[Anna]

Get Acronis True Image Home edition. www.acronis.com. You can use it to
save an Image to your DVDs and then later restore it.

Marty:
In addition to Gary's recommendation, let me offer you another suggestion...

1. Why not purchase a USB external enclosure (they're certainly cheap enough
nowadays) and install your new, larger HDD in the enclosure?

2. Using your Ghost disk cloning program or the Acronis True Image program
that Gary recommends - note Acronis has a 15-day trial version available -
clone the contents of your present laptop's HDD to the new HDD in the USB
external enclosure. (I know you've stated that your version 10 of Ghost
doesn't have this capability, but it does, since we've used that feature in
the past to clone the contents of an internal HDD to an external HDD. But we
were never thrilled with Ghost 10 and haven't used it for some time. We much
prefer the Acronis program that Gary mentions although our present favorite
disk cloning program is Casper 4.0. But the Acronis disk cloning program
will work just fine).

3. After you've cloned the contents of your old laptop's HDD to the new one,
remove the new HDD from its enclosure and install it in your laptop in place
of the old drive.

The advantage to the above is that you need not create "disk images" to a
number of DVD's and then go through a restoration/recovery process. The disk
cloning process is simple & direct and you will have a bootable, functional
HDD in a relatively short time.

While it is true that you could create a disk image or images with the
Acronis program (or for that matter, with the Ghost program that you have)
and store the image(s) onto DVDs, I would assume you have a reasonably
substantial amount of data on your current HDD so that you would probably
need multiple DVDs to store the images. While the Acronis and other disk
imaging programs do have the capacity of compressing the image, it's still a
large amount of data even in the compressed state. It's doable, of course,
but I wonder if under the present circumstances of your basic objective in
simply "copying" the contents of your present HDD to a new larger drive, the
disk cloning process would better suit that objective.

There's still another advantage with using a USB external enclosure. You
could install your current laptop's HDD in that device and the disk
imaging/disk cloning program as a routine comprehensive backup system. And
you could use the external HDD as the recipient of either a disk image or
disk clone - whatever suits your needs.
Anna