What's the best way to replace a laptop hard drive?

[PhenomeNhan]

I want to replace my current laptop hard drive with a larger one. Is there a way to do this without having to reinstall everything including the os? I've considered external drives but they would not be fast enough for my needs.

[m-fine]

There are a lot of backup software packages you can use, but you will need to re-install the OS and then do a restore with most of them. There are products like Ghost that will let you image the drive and then install the image using a boot cd or network boot, but I am not sure this will be simple or cos effective for home use.

[Jason]

Well if you're on a mac, then SuperDuper or the built in Time Machine feature will get you there.

Just a little searching I found this that looks simple enough.... I've never used anything like that though.

[PhenomeNhan]

There are a lot of backup software packages you can use, but you will need to re-install the OS and then do a restore with most of them. There are products like Ghost that will let you image the drive and then install the image using a boot cd or network boot, but I am not sure this will be simple or cos effective for home use.

Thanks, Matt. I was afraid it would not be a simple solution, but I just have to think there should be something simple that supports this. I figured that company laptops are always needing to be upgraded, replaced, etc., and the time it takes to reinstall everything would cost the company tons of money.

Well if you're on a mac, then SuperDuper or the built in Time Machine feature will get you there.

Just a little searching I found this that looks simple enough.... I've never used anything like that though.

What? Search? That's unheard of :D

Thanks for the find. It looks like something I will be purchasing soon :)

[m-fine]

Companies definitely have tools to deal with this, but they cost money. That $25 solution seems reasonably priced for the individual, but a lot of people wont spend a dollar.

[cburbs]

Nhan,

I have used this in the past with great success - http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Just how you get the new hard drive hooked up is another story. Do you have an external usb drive right now? If so this would be helpful. You could image the current hard drive to the external usb and then put the new drive in and image it with the image made from the old hard drive.

[bunnyma357]

I want to replace my current laptop hard drive with a larger one. Is there a way to do this without having to reinstall everything including the os? I've considered external drives but they would not be fast enough for my needs.

What I did is I got an enclosure to use the removed drive as a portable and then just booted from it and used a disk utility to copy the old drive onto the newly installed laptop drive.

The portable enclosure is bus powered and has been hugely useful - this is the one I used:

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MSTG800U2K/

I just had to make sure to get the right type IDE or SATA.


Jim C

[Stereodude]

The easiest way is to buy a new drive, put it in an external enclosure use a bootable CD or bootable USB flash drive with something like Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to clone the old drive to the new drive. Then once that's done take out the old HD and put in the new one.

There are some free drive cloning software programs out there as well, and some of the HD makers have a free version that can be used with their drives.

[bp2007]

I want to replace my current laptop hard drive with a larger one. Is there a way to do this without having to reinstall everything including the os? I've considered external drives but they would not be fast enough for my needs.

I had to do this recently for my laptop running Windows 7 (It should work for Windows Vista too, not sure about XP). This is what I did:

1. Backup (complete) on an external hard drive. I used windows 7 backup for this.
2. Remove the old hard drive and put the new one in.
3. Boot from Windows 7 DVD
4. Restore from the backup taken in #1. This will create the disk drives as in old setup/sizes. I had 2 drives (C: OS, D: Data).
5. Extended D: drive to account for additional free disk space on new (larger) drive.

All done. :) Hope this helps.

PS: This method is safe, as your original hard drive is still there, in case something goes wrong. :)

[PhenomeNhan]

Nhan,

I have used this in the past with great success - http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

Just how you get the new hard drive hooked up is another story. Do you have an external usb drive right now? If so this would be helpful. You could image the current hard drive to the external usb and then put the new drive in and image it with the image made from the old hard drive.

Thanks, Chad. I've a few drives in the house right now with all the new toys I just gotten over the past week :) Thx again. I'll check it out.

[PhenomeNhan]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I'm sure one of those methods will work for me. bp2007, I would try that method, but I don't know if it would work for me, since I don't have a bootable vista disk. When I got the laptop, it was bought through HP, so, the only disks I have are backup/restore disks that I had created originally. They never supplied me with a Vista disk.

[bp2007]

bp2007, I would try that method, but I don't know if it would work for me, since I don't have a bootable vista disk. When I got the laptop, it was bought through HP, so, the only disks I have are backup/restore disks that I had created originally. They never supplied me with a Vista disk.

This method might work, if you could get even beta or RC version on windows 7. All you need that disk is to boot and then use restore option. Your system will be restored to the backup you took before this process.

[Ray3]

Thanks for all the advice, guys. I'm sure one of those methods will work for me. bp2007, I would try that method, but I don't know if it would work for me, since I don't have a bootable vista disk. When I got the laptop, it was bought through HP, so, the only disks I have are backup/restore disks that I had created originally. They never supplied me with a Vista disk.

Nahn,

Some thoughts:
1) The restore discs you made for the HP will put all the crapware back on the PC. I just went through (last weekend) the process of wiping the drive on my HP dv7t. Dumped Vista and loaded Windows 7. Annoying/time consuming, but well worth it.

2) Whatever you do (aside from using the restore discs), go to the HP site and search on your model. Then go to the support page. There you will find HP-specific software to download. Important for things like the fingerprint reader if you have one, etc.

3) Immediately after loading the OS, use Windows Update, as well as HP Update. I was pleasantly surprised to find that that Windows Update (for Win 7) went out and found the latest drivers from the manufacturers website rather than just loading Windows drivers. For example, the first update was the driver for my graphics board from Nvidia.

I am now up & running and won't need to do this again anytime soon.

[m-fine]

and won't need to do this again anytime soon.

You are just begging for a HD failure with crazy talk like that!

[PhenomeNhan]

Thanks, Ray. I do have a copy of the necessary drivers somewhere :) It's pretty cool how you can get that from the MFG's site these days.