laptop drive replacement

[JamesB]

my wife has a gateway laptop and the thing is slower than the day is long.

I looked into the laptop and its got like a 4500 rpm HDD, I did NOT notice that when we bought it. No wonder its slow. so Im think of putting a 7200 rpm drive in there, we rarely use it with out AC power so thats not an issue.

how would I clone the current drive to the new drive?

I have one of those USB to IDE/SATA/laptop drive adapters, so I could hook it all up, clone the info over some how then install the new drive in the laptop. Just not sure what program to use.

I have replaced laptop drives before and Im not afraid of opening them up.

James

[AndrewCCM]

I just replaced an older Dell laptop drive 4500 RPM to just a 5400 and the speed was WAY noticeable I wanted a 7200.. but found a very good deal on the 5400 at the time. The old one was dead so I didn't have to do any cloning. Not sure what app to use. I am certain there are many out there. I just can't think of one off the top of my head. We use Ghost a lot...

[zeroendless]

i like open thing up, i replaced my 5400 MBP with 7200 less than one week old. The speed going from 4400rpm to 7200rpm will be screaming but so will the heat and seeking noise.

Get the Hitachi 100GB 7200RPM, that's the bigger u can get for 7200rpm. I have the sata version on MBP and ata-6 version on my Epson P2000. Works great

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822146052

As for the cloning, Acronis True image all the way. You can do hot backup then reimage to new drive or physically remove the drive then use 3.5-2.5 adapter with any desktop then clone it.

[robert t]

I have a program from Norton that allows you to do that, It is designed for small business. it's lets you do just that, clone OS and all info on the drive to the new drive, even if you are moving contents to a new pc. Got it through their web site. Clones everything from old drive to new drive and will work with usb/1394 external drives.

plug in external drive, run program. when it's done pull new drive from external case install in pc. use old drive for storage or just save as is in case you need to do it again.

[Wes]

If you buy it from some place like Best Buy they should be able to do it through the Geed Squad (for a price, I'm sure).

If I were doing this project myself, I would do the following:
1) Purchase the new drive.
2) Purchase a USB to IDE/SATA adapter cable like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812119018
3) Put the new drive into the machine and load the O/S and all of your applications.
4) Connect the old drive to the adapter cable that you bought in step 2 above.
5) The old drive shows up under Explorer as just another storage device.
6) Copy all of your data from one drive to the other.
7) Set the old drive aside for a period of time until you're sure that the new drive isn't going to die.

I'm going to be doing the same thing real soon, but will be going about it in a different manner. I have access to a machine at work where I'll be able to plug in the old drive as the master, the new drive as the slave and just push a button. It does a bit-by-bit copy in about 15 minutes. This machine cost about $5k. Sometimes it really pays to work in IT.

[darktiger]

I usually use Norton Ghost to clone my drives. Works great.

[kenw]

When you finish with the steps Wes outlined above, and are really sure you have everything you need from the old drive, buy a USB enclosure (~$25) and put the old drive in it. Then you will have a decent external (and very portable) extra storage drive. As it is 2.5" and USB powered, it gets the power it needs from the USB connection and you don't need any of theose clunky wall-wart power supplies.


I'm up to 3 of them now.....quite handy at 30,000'.

[JamesB]

Thanks I will get the Norton Ghost and give that a shot. I need to Migrate my OS drive to a new drive on my desk top as well, but thats later.

the laptop is just second PC my wife uses for accessing email and web surfing. And we use it when we travel. I back up all her data to my desk top over the home network so no need for extra storage just for the laptop. i have a few programs on there I really dont want to lose or have to reconfigure so thats why I want to clone the drive.

I alredy have the UBS to IDE/SATA/laptop drive adapter.

i wont trust Geek Squad to this type of task.

James

[mobilezen]

Originally Posted by darktiger

I usually use Norton Ghost to clone my drives. Works great.

Good choice!

[DJ.]

I just went through the same thing on my wife's laptop. I replaced her slow drive with a 100GB/7200RPM drive. I used the clone feature of Acronis TrueImage and it worked flawlessly.

Good Luck

[Mike G]

Originally Posted by robert t

I have a program from Norton that allows you to do that, It is designed for small business. it's lets you do just that, clone OS and all info on the drive to the new drive, even if you are moving contents to a new pc. Got it through their web site. Clones everything from old drive to new drive and will work with usb/1394 external drives.

plug in external drive, run program. when it's done pull new drive from external case install in pc. use old drive for storage or just save as is in case you need to do it again.

Is that the new version of Norton Ghost? I'm using Symantec Ghost 7.0 and I don't remember it being able to access external drives

[Ahh!]

Originally Posted by nitromike

Is that the new version of Norton Ghost? I'm using Symantec Ghost 7.0 and I don't remember it being able to access external drives

Ghost 8 does it and 7 had some limitations on externals. My bro tells me the newest version is called something other than Ghost, but it is also slick. I am a real fan of ghosting my drives! And those of us doing video (affectionately, vidiots), ghosting is a sad reality.

Here's my suggestion: Partion a D drive and move your My Documents to D. Move your mail over there too, or at least your offline OST. Get your C drive "just like you like it". Then ghost it, and put the copy on the shelf. Now when the BSOD, virus, adware, trojan, or crossthreading of your directory or map occurs on C, just pull out your image, ghost yourself back to reality and move on. 2 hours instead of .....reloading from nada and reloading all that software, drivers, and the like. Best done just after buying new or reloading from the latest fiasco.

Fellow vidiots with unstable software even put the image on a third partition on the main drive for convenience. Then it may take less than an hour to restore C to its original luster.

[David Whatley]

OK, I have a question. I want to use an external HD and Back up the ex wifes computer. OS, Programs, Everything. Then once a month I want to back up any changes to the exteranl drive. I will be storing the exteranl off site for her. Should I follow the same proceedre? Buy the drive, the usb/ide/data adapeter and Ghost?
Also, since she lives 75 miles away, is there a way to do an incremental back up via the net?

[bfphoto]

Originally Posted by DJ.

I just went through the same thing on my wife's laptop. I replaced her slow drive with a 100GB/7200RPM drive. I used the clone feature of Acronis TrueImage and it worked flawlessly.

Good Luck

Members of our computer club have used evey software out there for back ups. The best one by far is Acronis TrueImage. It will do it all.

[DJ.]

Another vote for Acronis.

Options for backup, recovery, and cloning. Full, incremental, or differential imaging features. I have replaced drives in my desktop and laptops using cloning and it works perfectly.