Upgrade Hard Drive, Dell E1505 Laptop

[gus]

I want to upgrade to a larger hard drive on my Dell E1505 Laptop. I
have questions
regarding the software transfer (not the physical installation of the
drive). The system
was purchased with WinXP and subsequently upgraded to Vista Ultimate
and Office
2007. I see Dell places four partitions on the drive: Utilities,
Windows C:\ drive, Backup
and something called "CP/M, Concurrent DOS, CTOS". Questions are:

-Is there a way to clone the old drive to the new drive, which is
larger (Presumeably
this involves physical hookup of the two drives, and a cloning
ultility which works
with Windows Vista).

-Or can I use my Dell (Windows XP) reinstall CD's onto the new drive,
and then reinstall
Vista and everything else ...

-Or should I ditch the Dell stuff entirely and do a scratch install?
Given that Vista and
Office 2007 are activated on the old drive, what's involved in re-
activating them on the
new drive? BTW I have my own backup methods and utilities, so I don't
really need
the Dell stuff .....

I assume lots of other people have done this, so if there's a pointer
to a how-to I'd
appreciate the link .....

 

[Rich Barry]

Gus, I don't know if your Dell is still under warranty. If it is I would
clone everything to the new drive. You can go to the
manufacturer's website of the drive you purchase or it may come with a CD
with the software to clone your old drive.
Most have the software you will need.
Having said that I would at some point like to start fresh and dump
the Dell stuff and just reinstall Vista and Office 7. Since it's just a hard
drive change reactivation should be no problem.

 

[HDRDTD]

Gus, I don't know if your Dell is still under warranty. If it is I would
clone everything to the new drive. You can go to the
manufacturer's website of the drive you purchase or it may come with a
CD with the software to clone your old drive.
Most have the software you will need.
Having said that I would at some point like to start fresh and
dump the Dell stuff and just reinstall Vista and Office 7. Since it's just
a hard
drive change reactivation should be no problem.

If you have another PC that you can install the laptop drive in, preferrably
BOTH the new and the old laptop drives, then I would try something like
Acronis TrueImage to clone the smaller drive to the larger drive. I believe
TrueImage will allow you to choose an 'automatic' resize option, or if not
you can manually choose the partition sizes for the new drive.

Either way, if you clone the drive or just do a new install, be prepared to
have to activate Vista/Office by phone with Microsoft. Normally just
changing a HD should not invoke a re-activation, but.....

re-activateing by phone is from what I hear, a pretty painless 5min phone
call.

BTW, the partitions you see might be....

A partition for Dell's Media Direct option
A small partition for Dell's diagnostics
Your main Windows partition
another last partition for system restore or backup.

 

[Star]

I want to upgrade to a larger hard drive on my Dell E1505 Laptop. I
have questions
regarding the software transfer (not the physical installation of the
drive). The system
was purchased with WinXP and subsequently upgraded to Vista Ultimate
and Office
2007. I see Dell places four partitions on the drive: Utilities,
Windows C:\ drive, Backup
and something called "CP/M, Concurrent DOS, CTOS". Questions are:

-Is there a way to clone the old drive to the new drive, which is
larger (Presumeably
this involves physical hookup of the two drives, and a cloning
ultility which works
with Windows Vista).

Gus

If your E1505 has the Media Direct feature as installed by Dell and
you are going to a larger drive be prepared for a problem.

The following was posted by a Brian K who post to this group.
Before you make the change over please read the info and the links.


I've posted a "5 minute fix". Well, maybe 10 minutes.

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=167401&page=2#27


This is a procedure to fix your HD so that it shows full size. Don't
worry
about trashing your HD. If you do mess up this procedure you just need
to
repeat the clone and start again.

You will need to download two files. The first is Roadkil's Sector
Editor.

http://www.roadkil.net/diskutils.html

Unzip the file and copy sectedit.exe to a folder in your HD.

The second file to download is Magic Boot Disk

http://hddguru.com/download/software...k_ISO_v2.0.zip

The main page is

http://hddguru.com/content/en/softwa...gic-Boot-Disk/ but you needn't
look
at this page .

Unzip the file and burn the .iso as an image. Not as a data CD. For
example,
in Nero close the initial window and choose Recorder, Burn Image.

Double click sectedit.exe. In the Select Disk box choose Physical 0
and
click Open. (DON'T choose any of the drive letters). Use the arrows at
the
bottom right to find LBA-3. It should take 3 clicks. Here is mine
which is
already zeroed. Your sector should have code.


(Image removed from this post by me)



Click Edit, Zero Data. Now you should see all zeroes. Click File, Save
Sector. Close Roadkil. Double click sectedit.exe again and confirm
that
LBA-3 has been zeroed.


Now shutdown Windows and boot to the Magic Boot Disk CD. Accept the
defaults.

At C:\MHDD> type MHDD and press Enter.

Type the number of your HD (it should be 1) and press Enter.

Now the prompt is MHDD>

Type RHPA and press Enter. Make a note of your Native Maximum LBA
address.
You will also see your reduced HD size.

Type NHPA and press Enter. Type Y for "Do you want to set Native LBA
address". Type Y for "Continue".

Type RHPA and press Enter. Your HD should be full size.

Type exit

Remove the CD and boot to Windows. The HD should be fixed.

-Or can I use my Dell (Windows XP) reinstall CD's onto the new drive,
and then reinstall
Vista and everything else ...

-Or should I ditch the Dell stuff entirely and do a scratch install?
Given that Vista and
Office 2007 are activated on the old drive, what's involved in re-
activating them on the
new drive? BTW I have my own backup methods and utilities, so I don't
really need
the Dell stuff .....

If you reinstall Vista or Office 2007 and they are not Dell supplied
software you *will* have to call MS and reactivate, you will not be
able to activate over the net.

I assume lots of other people have done this, so if there's a pointer
to a how-to I'd
appreciate the link .....

See the info and links I have pasted in above.

Art

PS It doesn't matter what software you use to perform the Clone
(Ghost, True Image or the HDD manufacture) you will have the same
problem going to a larger drive because of the Media Direct feature on
the Dell laptops.