Notebook hard disk replacement

Hello,

I'm hoping you folks can give me some direction here...before I screw something up.

I purchased True Image 10 Home to help me upgrade a hard drive on my laptop computer and have a few questions. It's a brand new laptop. I just want a larger hard drive. This is what I've done so far:

I made a backup of My Computer. It is a 30gb drive with 7.3Gb used. I backed it up to a dvd re-writable. It fit on only one dvd. (I'm assuming it was compressed?)

Now I'm ready to swap out the hard drive. Here are my questions:

1. Do I need to make a bootable cd or should I just boot from the Acronis Program cd after the swap?

2. Do I need to change the boot sequence in the bios to boot from the cd first? Or will it automatically look at the cd drive when it sees a blank hard disk?

3. Am I approaching this the best way? I would think I should use the clone feature, but don't have the ability to connect a second hard drive to the laptop. I only have a backup on dvd.

Thanks for your help!

 

Since your new hard drive doesn't yet have an OS, then the laptop should boot from the Acronis cd. But it doesn't hurt to have the boot order with the CD drive before the hard drive.

If your Acronis program cd also boots to the Acronis menu then certainly you can use it to start the Recovery of the backup Image from the dvd to the new drive.

 

You said you backed up My Computer. Did you do a complete disk backup (image) or a Files and Folders backup? If you want to restore the OS and all your files to the new drive you need to create a complete image of the disk. See the image below.

 

GoldFishColor,
Before you do anything more, validate your archive DVD to make sure your backup is complete and not corrupt. This can be done from the CD or from Acronis within Windows mode.

 

Suggest you do it from the CD since that is the environment that must to be able to read and process the archive properly.

 

I would do it from both, but if I had to choose one it would be from the CD.

F.

 

goldfish check out the help i had recently in doing the exact same thing, larger harddrive in a caddy then straightforward swap: search for this thread.

Newbie can I have help plse cloning a disk??

I wouldn't promote anyone giving you a hand but Brian_k was fantastic..couldn't ask for anything more..what a forum..so helpful..++++++++++

 

Thanks for the fast response!

I'm leaning towards making sure I properly backed up the entire drive, verify the backup and then boot from the Acronis cd and see what happens.

JDoherty,

I was going to pick up a USB hard drive enclosure to make use of the old drive anyway.

Do you folks think I should do it before I proceed as above and clone the drive?

Would this would be a better way to accomplish the swap?

Thanks again!

As an aside, why the heck doesn't Acronis include step by step instructions on how to do this. From what I've read, this is a common reason why folks purchase Acronis in the first place. This shouldn't have to be rocket science.

Maybe it's just me.

 

Have you read the Users Guide available at http://download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage10.0_ug.en.pdf. GroverH also has some guides in his signature.

 

Goldfishcolor,
I'm not disagreeing with anything said previously but I'd add:

- Update your TI 10 from the web site.
- create a new bootable disk from this. Might as well include both versions (safe & full)
- write your backup.
- test the backup using the bootable disk (preferably the full version).
Then swap disks and try a restore.

Note that your backup is smaller than the occupied space on your hard drive because contents of files like the paging file are excluded.

Good luck.
Phil

 

Goldfishcolor I was always using external caddies anyway. so maybe was simpler for me. But I was using a genuine copy of Acronis TI 9.0 but it did not have all the functionality present. Used a trial version of TI 10.0 but I think in some cases part of the trial software etc may be crippled. I just could not get the clone function to work..using TI or Migrate Easy I agree re step by step instructions. I was fortunate and got help from a real expert. I will be buying TI10 but this did not help me get over my initial problems. Personally I'd go for the caddy route and this way the drives can be seen via the USB port etc. But I am sure there are smarter folks than me.
Cheers JD76...

 

You guys are great.

I made the swap and tried a restore from the dvd. All worked fine. The new drive is working perfectly.

The thing I notice now, is the size of the new drive doesn't seem to have increased. If I check my C: drive in My Computer, it still shows the 30gb size. (Actually, 27.9gb). The new drive should be a 60gb.

Is there somehow a partition in there that is the same as the old drive? How do I see the entire size of the drive?

Thanks so much for the advice!

 

What has worked for me and is easy to do:
1. Boot with the Rescue cd.
2. Choose manage Acronis Secure Zone and create one - any size less than the missing space will do.
3. Exit out to the Acronis main menu and go right back in with the Manage Acronis SZ.
4. Choose to delete the SZ.
5. You will be asked if you want to allocate all the unused space to the existing partition (or words to that effect). Choose yes and let the process complete.
6. Exit out to the Acronis main menu.
7. Reboot the computer and quickly remove the cd.

 

That did it.

Thanks Ralphie!

 

Okay...one last question...

I notice that in "My Computer" it lists the hard drive as 55.8gb. (should be 60gb?)

When I right click the C drive and click properties, under capacity it shows...

60,011,610,112 bites 55.8gb

So, it appears the size is correct under bites, but shows a smaller number under gb. Any idea why?

 

That's the quirkiness of bits and bytes and how manufacturers take advantage of it. If the maker says 100gig Windows or Dos will report about 6% less ... just the way it is. Glad to hear you got back the missing part of the drive. That procedure has always worked for me.

 

This is because 1GB = 1024*1024*1024 bytes.

60,011,610,112 /(1024*1024*1024) = 55.8 GB

F.