Best way to Clone a Laptop Drive?

I am wondering the best way to Clone my existing 4.5 year old HP Laptop's HD? Could I place the new drive in an external USB Drive Case and clone it. Then install it into my Laptop as the new "C" dirve? My present OS is Windows XP SP-2.

Thanks,

Zach

 

Zach,

See my posts in the Acronis True Image, Build 774 thread. I created an image of my old drive to an external Maxtor hard drive. I then replaced my old drive with the new one. booted up using the "Rescue" CD, and restored the image to the new hard drive. I then was able to boot into Windows using the new drive.

The method you mentioned should work also. Just be careful when it asks about "Destroying the old disk data". This is an option in the clone process to allow wasting the old drive in case you want to dump it. It you want to keep it, then select not to destroy the old drive.

 

John,

Thanks for the response and the helpful tip on "Destroying the old disk data".

I will review your other post and see if I can understand it. I was concerned about the external USB method for lack of information and exactly how to configure the drive, Master or Slave. I think the only way the USB will work is as a Master. As long as I do not destroy any data on the old drive until I have the new one cloned I will be ok. I do have all of the data backed up but who wants to copy any more than necessary!

Are there any XP SP-2 issues that you are aware of? i.e. Product Registration etc.

Zach

 

Zach,

I dont think the master/slave issue exists if one of the drives is external. Only if they are connected to the same disk controller. I would leave whatever the drive is set at now (most likely "master") as the proper one. I just plugged in my new drive right out of the box without changing any jumpers.

I dont have SP2 installed yet, so I cant help you there. That is one of the reasons I got the replacement drive so I could mess with SP2 without wasting my current drive.

 

John,

Sounds good to me.

On the XP SP-2 issues, I have had only one so far. I am not sure what it is but I am getting a random IE crash/lockup when returning to my "Home Page" which is a logged in Microsoft "Home Page". I thought it was one of my ad blockers or spyware programs but I am now leaning toward something in the "Downloaded Programs" list. If I clear all items listed in "Tools/Internet Options/General Tab/Temproary Internet Files/Settings/View Objects", the problem seems to disappear. When I add "Macromedia Flash Player" back in which, is required by some of my Stock Programs, the issue seems to return. Just not enough information yet to be sure.

Other than that SP-2 works like a champ.

Zach

 

Zach,

I had occassional lock ups with IE also. I went to Mozilla's FireFox and, other than one problem with a new version of Sun's Java, it has performed wonderfully. It has a built-in pop-up blocker as does IE SP2, but is safer because it does not support ActiveX, which is the source of a lot of malware people get on their computers these days.

You might want to try Lavasoft's Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy to check for any malware installed on your system. You could also install HijackThis, run a scan, and post a log in one of the forums that have people that can analyze your HijackThis log. I have analyzed quite a few myself and helped people get rid of some of this malware. It is amazing how much junk people let get installed on their computers, willingly or unwillingly.

 

John,

Have each and everyone of those programs that you mention and my system is clean. Just downloaded and installed the latest CWShredder tonight to keep up-to-date.

This appears to be something simple but no answers as of yet. Posted on the forums and started an assisted support issue with Microsoft and still looking.

Zach

 

I am trying to do the exact same thing (Clone or restore image to new hard drive on my laptop). I had one question: Do I need to do anything to the new drive before I clone (or restore via image) my old drive to the new one? Does it need to be partitioned or made active or formatted, etc? Or do I just take the new drive out of the package, restore the image or clone to it, install the new drive and boot up?

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

I did it last night on my desktop, did NOTHING to the drive beforehand.

 

Dear kbfresh,

There is no need to prepare your new hard drive.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Andrew Berezovsky

 

Thanks for the replies.