How to Upgrade a Laptop hardrive

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by derkdiggler, Apr 3, 2009.

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  1. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Hello,

    I'm a bit unsure at some terms in the help section like mount, clone or restore.

    What I basically want to do is take the data on my 150gb laptop drive and move it to a new 500gb drive. I'd be using Acronis True Image Home 2009

    I know how to do this with a desktop that allows several drives installed at once, however as you know laptops hold only one drive. I installed the new
    blank drive, formated it and it boots to XP pro. I want to take the old drive which has the same XP pro but all my programs and files and add it to the new drive or over write it. Does this make sense?

    I tried on time to do a back up of the old drive, network the laptop, restore from the back up on another computer via the network, to the new drive on the laptop. It seemed to do this, rebooted to start a process, lasted an hour or so. Then Windows would not boot, when it got to the black XP logo screen
    seconds latter a blue screen of death flashed and then it keeps rebooting.

    Any help or what process works best for Laptop drive upgrades appreciated.

    Derk
     
  2. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Derk,

    Out of interest, what brand is your laptop? How many partitions are on the old HD? Do you have a USB external HD enclosure? Have you created an Acronis TI boot recovery CD?

    Have you read the cloning guides by Grover H? Links are in his signature.
     
  3. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Fujitsu P8010 Laptop, the stock HD came with 2 partitions, one was very small, out of 150g it was about 2gb. No don't have a USB enclosure but if that's what it takes I will get one. Have not created the TI recovery CD. I will look at the cloning guides.

    Thanks
     
  4. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    You will need more than just the usb enclosure ... you need a hard drive in that enclosure to hold the Backup Image.
     
  5. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Here's the deal, I have a Laptop, with a 150gb drive inside. I bought a 500gb drive which will replace the 150gb. Removing and changing the drives is not a problem. Now with 2 drives which I have can I transfer all the data from the 150g to the 500g? From one response, yes I know I need a drive to go inside the enclosure. Can I use one of the two drives I already have OR do I now need (3) drives to accomplish this?

    Thanks
     
  6. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    No disrespect for this Grover poster who obviously spent much time with details. My problem is I want a simple solution without all the other details that don't apply to me. Is there no step by step to upgrade a laptop (remember you can only have one drive in the laptop at a time). I have it hooked to the network so I can save images across the net to my desktop. Short of removing both drives and installing them on my desk top and then doing a copy to copy. I might as well throw away Acronis since due to it's complications people who aren't technical don't want to bother with it. I guess what I was searching for is a simple, (without all the reasons for other things and tons of details that mean nothing to me). ie.

    1. Use Acronis to back up your hard drive (old drive) "create Image
    A. Select the Disk or partition
    2. Remove old hard drive, install new one
    3. Boot with Restore disk Acronis
    4. Install new image from back up to new drive

    What is the procedure to get the entire backup onto a CD, then boot with the recovery CD (acronis) tell it to take the CD with old content on it and put it on the new blank drive.

    Then you re-boot and you're done.

    Is this possible?

    While I'm asked if I have a USB drive, enclosure etc. can someone explain what I do when I locate a USB drive, with or without a drive.

    Thank you
     
  7. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Derk,

    A summary....

    Remove the old HD from your laptop and put it in a USB HD enclosure.
    Put your new empty (unpartitioned) HD in the laptop.
    Boot from the Acronis TI CD and perform the cloning procedure.
    Unplug the USB HD before the first boot from the new HD.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2009
  8. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Thank you, just what I needed...
     
  9. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Can I also assume that you could use a USB drive (not with the new drive) and clone the old drive image to the USB drive, then boot with the cd and copy that clone image to the new drive?

    Thank you
     
  10. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Not exactly sure what you mean. Cloning with the old HD in the laptop and the new HD in the USB enclosure is less reliable.

    There are numerous other ways to "copy" your old to your new HD but I'm trying to outline the easiest way.

    See this link for the difference between a clone and an image...

    http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#note14
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2009
  11. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    First of all, didn't Diggler spell his name Dirk, with an 'i' ?

    The process isn't all that complicated once you understand how it works and do it a few times. But the reality is what you're trying to do isn't exactly simple to people who aren't technical, and there's potential pitfalls to avoid, so that's why the instructions aren't as simple as you might like.

    Ironically, you pretty much described the imaging/restoration process above, but you seem to misunderstand the usage of the recovery CD. The CD allows you to load Acronis into the computer memory, and run from there without starting up Windows. You have to do that because the partition you're going to restore onto a blank HD is the partition that contains Windows, so you can't be running Windows if its not there. And, if Windows was installed, and you wanted to restore the C: partition to a different state, you wouldn't want to be running from the C: partition at the same time you were writing over it, does that make sense? So your recovery CD simply contains the executable code to run Acronis on a machine without any OS. You will still need to have access to a hard drive with the C: partition image on it to do the restoration.

    Now you have two options, you can either image the old C: partition to an external drive (a separate USB hard drive). Then remove/replace the old HD with your new 500GB one and restore the image from the USB HD to the new HD. That assumes you have a third USB HD to use for that purpose. If you don't have one, then the second option (cloning) is the only one that will work. Brian K described how to clone the old disk to the new one in a previous post.

    Here's a third option, I don't think it will work properly, but it will illustrate how things can sometimes go wrong if you don't know exactly how everything works. I'm not 100% sure about this myself, but hopefully someone else will correct me if I'm wrong. If you put your new 500GB drive into an external USB enclosure and partition it into two (or more partitions) you can then save the C: partition image of your old HD onto one of the 500GB drive partitions. Then swap the two HDs so the 500GB is in the laptop, and boot from the recovery CD. Then you should be able to find the C: image file on one partition of the 500GB drive, and restore it to the other partition on the same HD. The problem is since those partitions on the 500GB HD have already been seen by the OS (when you connected it via the USB and saved the image there) they have already been assigned drive letters in your registry. When you restore the old C: image to one of those partitions and try to boot, your OS partition will not be assigned to C: anymore, it will be assigned to some other letter and the boot process will hang. So trying to do an image restore with only two drives will not work properly, you'll have to get a third USB drive.

    That's why Brian suggested cloning as the easiest option, because it only requires two drives, not three. If you happen to have the third USB drive available, then imaging will go faster than cloning because it only copies and restores the sectors that are used. The cloning process copies every sector on the drive, even the unused ones, so it takes longer.
     
  12. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    dwalby,

    I like using this option and only two HDs are needed. You can get around the drive letter issue by this....

    Partition the new HD into two. One for the new OS and the other to hold your image. Now delete the first partition, the partition intended for the restored OS. Create an image of your OS, writing the image to the remaining partition on the new HD.
    Remove the old HD from your computer and install the new HD. Boot from the TI CD and restore the image to the unallocated space on the HD. Boot from the new OS.

    Deleting the partition intended for the restored OS, prior to creating the image, gets around the registry issue you mentioned. I've tested this method with several of the common imaging apps and it works. For reasons which I don't understand, if you are using TeraByte Unlimited software, you don't have to delete the partition prior to creating an image of the old OS.
     
    Last edited: Apr 3, 2009
  13. derkdiggler

    derkdiggler Registered Member

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    Thanks for the link which explains cloning and images it helps.

    I always liked the movie and music perhaps due to growing up in the 70's. When I went to yahoo to register it appeared many people beat me to the correct spelling thus something else, even that someone else had taken thus the 2.

    I do understand the basic concept and have upgraded hard drives on desk tops. I do understand that the Recovery Disk purpose is to load the program into RAM and run the program without using the existing hard drive. Perhaps I did not make that clear, again thanks for taking the time to explain it.

    Could this work and be as simple as.
    1. Laptop with old drive installed. Plug in exterior USB drive, also plug in the new drive which you installed in a USB exterior housing.
    2. Using Acronis you copy the image of the old drive to the exterior USB.
    3. Then using Acronis you restore the image to the new drive in a docking station.

    Then the issue is what settings to use with Acronis.

    Finally here is the outcome, the happy ending.

    While all these responses were coming in, I ran out and bought a 320gb WD USB drive. Also a Black Widow USB docking station ($50) by Thermaltake.
    Determined to get this done and over with, the worst scenerio is one of these items goes back to the store.

    I fired up the laptop with the old drive, made an image which I copied to the USB drive. I then popped the new 500gb drive into the docking station and restored the image that was on the USB to the new drive. Shut it all down, removed the old drive, installed the new drive into the laptop. Fired it all up without the dock or USB attached. Everything appears to work. I imagin the 2 drive method mentioned would work, by the time I read it I already had the two pieces of hardware. In the end it worked, finally.

    Again many thanks to all the souls who took the time and effort to post and read. Great to know in the big world you can hop online and within a day or so get some help and answers.

    Dirk aka Derk
     
  14. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Derk,

    Excellent news. Good work.

    Just for interest, the method you used doesn't work in IBM, HP or Compaq laptops. That's why I asked the question earlier about your laptop brand. In these laptops the internal HD has a different drive geometry from a USB HD. To be successful with these brands, the destination HD needs to be seen in its correct geometry at restore time. That is, mounted in its "final resting place".
     
  15. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    Brian,

    Any idea why he didn't run into the drive letter issue using that method?
     
  16. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    dwalby,

    It's because he used 3 HDs. When the image was made the 500 GB HD wasn't attached to the computer so the partition wasn't "seen". The image didn't "know" anything about the 500 GB HD so there would not be a drive letter issue.

    The only potential problem was the restore was done "outside" the laptop. Between two USB devices. USB HDs are always seen as 255 heads geometry. If the laptop had been an IBM etc, the 240 heads internal HD geometry (a BIOS defined geometry) would have been an issue when the 500 GB HD was installed internally. As the files had been restored under a different geometry, the OS would not have booted.

    Out of interest, if you take a HD from a Dell laptop (255 heads geometry) and install it in an IBM laptop, the HD will have 240 heads geometry because the BIOS determines geometry. You can view the geometry by using a DOS app such as PTEDIT.
     
  17. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    OK, explain something to me that I don't seem to understand. I thought the 'docking station' appears just as any other USB HD to the OS. If I read his post correctly he had the old HD in the laptop, and *BOTH* the 500GB and the 320GB attached as USB externals. He imaged from the laptop HD to the 320GB external and then restored that image to the 500GB external. Wouldn't the OS see all three drives and attach letters to all the partitions it finds? Even if the 500GB was unpartitioned, the restoration process would have created a partition. Or am I just not understanding the connection protocol, since I don't understand how the 500GB wasn't attached to the computer. If it wasn't attached to the computer I'm not following how Acronis would be able to see it to do the restore.
     
  18. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    My understanding is the 500 GB HD wasn't in the USB docking station at the time the image of the OS was created. All three HDs were connected at restore time.

    If all three HDs had been connected at the time of image creation there probably would have been a drive letter issue but not if the 500 GB HD had been unallocated space.
     
  19. GroverH

    GroverH Registered Member

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    Brian,
    Many of the docking stations are Esata with SATA drives but sometimes connected via USB. Would this type arrangement had any influence in the drive geometry or anything else?
     
  20. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    Grover,

    I have no personal experience with this type of hardware but if the device is connected to the computer by USB the HD will be seen as 255 heads. It doesn't matter what type of HD is in the enclosure. IDE or SATA. If it's connected by eSATA I assume the BIOS geometry applies.
     
  21. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    OK, now I get it. By doing the restore via the boot disk the OS isn't running, therefore it can't see the new partition during the restore. So if you do the image step using the boot disk as well, and then shut down without actually booting into Windows, you could probably do the imaging as well with all 3 disks connected and partitioned. Its only if you have Windows running with a visible partition on the target drive where you run into issues.
     
  22. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    I think the restore was done while Windows was running. That's how I read the post.

    You must not see the target partition's drive letter at the time the image is created. Restore time is a different matter.

    Dan Goodell's first rule of imaging is...

    It applies to image/restore as well as cloning.

    In post #12 I suggested deleting the target partition before the image of the OS was made. To avoid confusion I omitted to describe the other method of removing the drive letter of the target partition using Disk Management but not deleting the partition. In this situation it is OK to image the OS as the target partition doesn't have a drive letter recorded in the OS' registry.

    Does this make sense? The target partition needs to be deleted or have its drive letter removed BEFORE the image of the OS is created.
     
  23. dan_yo

    dan_yo Registered Member

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    QUICK AND SIMPLE WAYto (move, copy,etc) everything (OS, MBR, folders,files, settings) from your "old" drive to a "new" drive.

    Download ATI 2009 trial and do a "CLONE' of the "old" drive.

    I did that, "cloned" my 160GB drive to a "new" 320GB drive using an USB enclosure. Installed the "new" drive in my laptop, booted up the system and everything is running as before.

    Now I have a "new" 320GB drive installed in the laptop, extra 160GB drive I can use for storage.

    Fast, clean and simple!!!:thumb:
     
  24. dwalby

    dwalby Registered Member

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    It took a little time for it to sink in, but I finally realized that once the image is captured, the registry state will be saved at that time. So if the OS hasn't seen the new partition at that time, there will be no record of it in the registry, and that version of the registry will eventually be restored, whether you use Windows or the boot disk. So that part now makes sense to me, what the OS sees during restore isn't important, because it will be removed and replaced with the image anyway.

    So when you do a restore, and create the new partition (assuming it was unallocated space during the imaging step) then the partition table on that disk shows the new partition and has it marked as active. There's no letter assignment association in the partition table itself, right? (That's the part I stumbled on earlier). So as long as you remove the original disk and replace it with the new disk, on reboot the OS then sees the new partition as active, assigns it the letter C: and all is well.

    Now a couple new related questions, while we're on the topic. I've heard various debates about what happens if you have multiple partitions marked as active simultaneously on bootup. Let's say you do the restore to the new disk, so now you have two copies of XP on two different disks. What happens if you put both disks into the same machine and reboot (assume its a desktop)? Alternately, what happens if you have two partitions marked active, but they contain different Operating Systems?

    thanks in advance for the help.
     
  25. Brian K

    Brian K Imaging Specialist

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    dan_yo,

    What brand is your laptop? I assume it's not an IBM.
     
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