Changing hard drives

[pcatterall]

The hard drive on my old dell laptop sounds like it may pack up at any time.
I use this particular laptop for navigation and general use.
If I get a new hard drive can I transfer the operating system ( and all the info) installed on the suspect one to the new one and how do I do this.
We do have an identical lap top available if that would help?
Very grateful for any advice especially if long words are avoided.
Cheers

 

[Tranona]

Can be done - don't know how it is done, but my computer wiz did it on my desktop for £120 including a new disk drive and recovering all the old files. Don't think a laptop will be much different.

 

[Lakesailor]

Probably better to ask in the lounge where all the anoraks will tell you how to do it.

 

[Simonpk]

Don't know how on a PC BUT as a priority make sure you have backed up any vital information before it fails completely.

 

[bedouin]

Worth considering an SDD - nice on laptops.

Some of those come as "kits" that includes everything you need to copy your old HDD (basically a cable and some software).

Otherwise it is pretty straightforward - but you do need a way of attaching both old and new HDDs to the same machine then use a piece of software such as PartitionMagic to copy the partition from one to the other.

How old is you machine? If it is more than a few years you will need to check that you get the right sort of HDD (IDE or SATA).

 

[charles_reed]

The hard drive on my old dell laptop sounds like it may pack up at any time.
I use this particular laptop for navigation and general use.
If I get a new hard drive can I transfer the operating system ( and all the info) installed on the suspect one to the new one and how do I do this.
We do have an identical lap top available if that would help?
Very grateful for any advice especially if long words are avoided.
Cheers

Free software here:-

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDClone.shtml

I've done it on several occasions, but usually the motherboard goes before the HDD.

You'll probably be hard pressed to get an IDE HDD now - they're all SATA

 

[TrueBlue]

Free software here:-

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/HDClone.shtml

I've done it on several occasions, but usually the motherboard goes before the HDD.

You'll probably be hard pressed to get an IDE HDD now - they're all SATA

There seems to be a resurgeance in the IDE market. http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat/Hard-Drive---InternalA few are available here and CPC have a slightly different selection. SO all is not (yet) lost.

 

[pagoda]

There seems to be a resurgeance in the IDE market. http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Storage/cat/Hard-Drive---InternalA few are available here and CPC have a slightly different selection. SO all is not (yet) lost.

There are numerous SSD (no moving parts!) drives for older laptops with parallel ATA / IDE devices. They will never be as quick as modern SATA drives , but make an elderly laptop almost boat proof!
Well worth investigating - have a look for PATA SSD on Ebay - there are quite a few these days...prices falling steadily!

 

[VicMallows]

My preference would be to simply clone the existing hard drive in its entirety to a same size (or slightly larger) hard disk of the same type. It will either be PATA (IDE) or SATA. If SATA be careful not to jump from SATA1 to SATA3. (SATA2 'should' be OK either way).

If a laptop, you will need an external hard drive case to attach via USB ... under £5 on amazon/ebay.

Fit the cloned disk in the laptop. MicroSoft may, or may not, ask you to 'validate' it .... but that should be OK as long as you have a sticker on the laptop with valid details of the original install.

 

[skipper681]

You could put your existing hard drive in a caddy and transfer it's contents to another pc, then put your new drive in the caddy and transfer it all back there.

Caddys on ebay are only a few quid.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p5197.m570.l1313&_nkw=hard+drive+caddy&_sacat=0&_from=R40

 

[Boo2]

The hard drive on my old dell laptop sounds like it may pack up at any time.
I use this particular laptop for navigation and general use.
If I get a new hard drive can I transfer the operating system ( and all the info) installed on the suspect one to the new one and how do I do this.
We do have an identical lap top available if that would help?

After having use Partition Magic (now defunct) and more recently Acronis Disk Director I came across Macrium Reflect last time I had to copy a complete hard drive. The free version of that worked fine and it's available as a download from the link. This software will allow you to copy a complete hard drive or hard drive partition to a new disk, even though the new disk is a different size (ie bigger) than the old one.

The issue you will most likely face as a notebook owner though is that there is normally only space for one hard drive and also only a single connector. For that reason it is not possible to connect both hard drives at the same time to permit the copy software to run on one machine.

One solution to this is to plug both old and new hard drives into a desktop machine via 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive adaptors like the IDE ones here or the SATA ones here. These may or may not work because sometimes notebooks use non-standard (ZIF) HDD connectors.

otherwise it's back to the service centre I'm afraid

Boo2

 

[ffiill]

Clearly I have missed my way-there are freebe software programmes out there which can make a copy of your hard drive operating system/programmes.
As for changing the hard drive certainly on thinkpads its undo one screw;pull out the hard drive;push another one in and secure with screw.
Laptop bios does the rest including telling you to install a new operating system.
It will probably also format and partition the hard drive for you.
I just recently replaced the Motherboard on one of my thinkpads with one out of another U/S one.
15 or so screws plus plugging in and out-about one hour in total.
For all necessary info go to Laptops home site and download maintainence manual.
Both IBM Levono and Dell list every one built since 1990s.
Keyboards;Motherboards;harddrives;DVD roms etc are all plug and play.

 

[Heckler]

The hard drive on my old dell laptop sounds like it may pack up at any time.
I use this particular laptop for navigation and general use.
If I get a new hard drive can I transfer the operating system ( and all the info) installed on the suspect one to the new one and how do I do this.
We do have an identical lap top available if that would help?
Very grateful for any advice especially if long words are avoided.
Cheers

depends how brave you are, i have software, that i would send yo, that will do it.
or send me your hard drive and i will do it foc
stu