Upgrading laptop hard disk

[matt_hooks]

OK I'm looking at increasing the size of the HDD on my laptop.

Need a simple way of getting all of the data, apps and OS onto the new drive so that I can slot it in and run it.

I have a 2.5" external enclosure I can plug it into, so will it work if I just image the data across onto the new drive then swap them over?

If not, is there a simple way I can achieve this without having to get my hands on an XP cd as my pc came with it installed.

Any help would be fab as I'm getting seriously low on HDD space!

Cheers

Matt

[bladewashout]

Backup software with a 'disaster recovery' mode usually allows this, I think Dantz retrospect does it, possibly Nero. You do a backup to a bootable CD/DVD with volumes for the data, remove the old disk, plug in the new one, boot off the bootable CD to format the drive then just plug the backup discs back in.

You can play around because at least you know you have the ultimate backup - your original hard disk! Buying good backup software is an excellent investment.

Be cautious over the new drive - my Thinkpad T40 firmware won't boot off non-IBM primary hard drives (although it used to until a firmware update usefully removed that functionality!)

BW

[matt_hooks]

Blade, that sounds far simpler than the alternatives. I can get IBM HDD's relatively cheap so if the one I've got won't boot it's not too big a problem.

The next question, is there any good free backup software that will support this? I'm a poor student so can't really afford to pay for a "one time use" piece of software.

Cheers

Matt

[bladewashout]

IBMs (T40?) shipped with rapid restore ultra as standard, and I think this can be downloaded from the IBM web site, although it may have been re-badged by xpoint. I think you needed some space on the hard drive to do it, though, in a partition other than the primary one. You would need to do some hunting on the IBM/Lenovo web site.

you might get somewhere with Nero or some software which shipped with CD/DVD writers or tape drives.

BW

[matt_hooks]

Eep, how did you know I had an IBM?

Is an R50E, came with 40GB from the factory.

I can easily free some space on the hard drive, just move some files onto the network drive.

I shall have a search round the Lenovo site and see what they do.

Cheers for all the help!

Matt

[Saab Dastard]

Disk cloning is probably the simplest way to do what you want - I've got any number of these free on magazine cover disks.

It's also possible to get free / share ware or trial versions off the web.

e.g. http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilit...andimage.shtml

SD

[born2fly_au]

It always pays to have a good quality backup and imaging program. It pays to backup you hard drive on a regular basis. I use Acronis Trueimage (Trial Version Available) and would recommend it. Even brand new hard drives fail so it always pays to have a copy of your data stored on a cd or DVD. In my opinion it is worth partitioning your hard drive so as to have your operating system only on C: drive and all your personal files on another partition that way if you need to reformat C: Drive your data is safely out of the way on another partition.
Born2fly