Replacing Hard Drive - hard drive letter

[operaflute]

Okay, I am in the midst of swapping out the HDD on my Dell laptop (Inspiron
8600) with a bigger one. I've put the new HDD in a USB enclosure and I'm
using the "copy drive" feature on Norton Ghost to copy the old HDD data to
the new. How do I maintain the "C" as the drive name. I can't name the new
HDD "C" since "C" is used by the current HDD, but I can't rename the current
HDD since it's the boot drive.
What's the best thing to do?
Thanks!

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Okay, I am in the midst of swapping out the HDD on my Dell laptop
(Inspiron
8600) with a bigger one. I've put the new HDD in a USB enclosure and I'm
using the "copy drive" feature on Norton Ghost to copy the old HDD data to
the new. How do I maintain the "C" as the drive name.

Ghost should look after this for you.

. I can't name the new
HDD "C" since "C" is used by the current HDD, but I can't rename the
current
HDD since it's the boot drive.
What's the best thing to do?
Thanks!

You're cloning the drive and do not name it.

When done, remove the old drive and put the new one in, do not restart with
the old drive connected.

HTH
-pk

 

[operaflute]

I can't see how to edit posts...

Anyway - I wanted to add - should I just NOT assign a drive letter to the
new HHD (currently USB) I am copying to, and when I physically swap them out,
it will automatically call it "C"?

 

[Alias]

I can't see how to edit posts...

That's because you can't edit them.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I can't see how to edit posts...

Anyway - I wanted to add - should I just NOT assign a drive letter to the
new HHD (currently USB) I am copying to, and when I physically swap them
out,
it will automatically call it "C"?

That's the way it should work. Cloning software often starts with wiping
the partition table of the target anyway, so you're wasting effort by
assigning a letter.

HTH
-pk

 

[operaflute]

I've never been able to find support for Ghost, really. The website is
basically the instruction book online. And I've not found a forum at all.
Gulp - I guess I'll try just not assigning a drive letter...
Thanks

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Okay, I am in the midst of swapping out the HDD on my Dell laptop (Inspiron
8600) with a bigger one. I've put the new HDD in a USB enclosure and I'm
using the "copy drive" feature on Norton Ghost to copy the old HDD data to
the new. How do I maintain the "C" as the drive name. I can't name the new
HDD "C" since "C" is used by the current HDD, but I can't rename the current
HDD since it's the boot drive.
What's the best thing to do?
Thanks!

You're making a clone of the original (which called its own partition "C:").
So the clone will also call its own partition "C:" when it is running.

*TimDaniels*

 

[operaflute]

Do I need to remove the DVD/CD? Is there any chance it will call that "C"
and the HDD "D". I've been reading about all these problems where the new
HDD gets locked into the wrong letter, and you can't log on..

Gah! I'm skeered to do this!
Thanks to all.

 

[operaflute]

Incidentally, I already copied the "Dell Utility" drive to the new HDD. It
doesn't show up in Disk Manager which seems odd. Why is that? There is no
drive letter associated with it on either the old or new HDDs, but the
partition on the old HDD DOES show up in Disk Manager.

 

[operaflute]

Can you believe it? It all worked as it was supposed to!
Now, let's say in the future, I want to use the old HDD as an external. I
won't cause any trouble by hooking it up, will I?
Many thanks for all!

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Can you believe it? It all worked as it was supposed to!
Now, let's say in the future, I want to use the old HDD as an external.
I won't cause any trouble by hooking it up, will I?

No, as long as the old HDD is used via USB because a USB
HDD can't be given control for booting by the BIOS (for most if
not all BIOSes).

*TimDaniels*