Copying from HDD to HDD

I reformat a lot, and Norton Ghost is immensely helpful with backup and copy procedures.

I just recently upgraded from a 40gb to a 60gb hd. Basically what I did was I attached my new 60gb HD to a USB disk enclosure I had lying around (these cost about $30). One thing to note with laptop drives is you'll either need an enclosure that takes 2.5" drives or a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter. The adapters are $5-10 at computer shows.

Anyway, you attach the new drive to the enclosure then plug the enclosure to a USB port. Windows will detect it. Then you just run Norton Ghost and pick the option to copy a drive to another drive (I forget exactly what it's called). I also selected some options to resize the partition to match the newer, bigger drive, make the new partition bootable, and to copy the MBR. Then go make some food or something because the copy procedure takes about 20-30 minutes.

After the copy procedure is complete, just shut down your computer and swap the drives. Done!

Click the link in somms' sig "Create A Bootable Automatic DVD Restore Disc That Will Capture the 'First-Boot' Condition From Your New Notebook..."

Peruse the 2nd page of his PDF guide and you will see how to make your very Ghost boot CD-R.

Link to somms' sig:
http://www.notebookforums.com/showpo...96&postcount=8

It may compress down to 60 gigs or less (guessing.....) Compressed files like jpeg and mp3 will not compress much, however. So, yes an external would be your best bet.

The application in the guide that I linked to is actually Ghost, with a few add-ons by the author. He tells you how to make a restore DVD, but forget all that. You just want the Ghost program.

Use the command line that he specifies....

ghost -ghostoncd -bootcd -auto

... to get you into the Ghost program. Then you can image to an external HDD. I use a 250 gig USB2 external for that, myself.

Great Ghost guide here:
http://ghost.radified.com/

Well, a single DVD won't hold an image of your whole HD. For your needs it's best to do a HD to HD copy. You may also want to get a copy of PartitionMagic 8, as it can fix some issues that may occur if the HD to HD copy doesn't work out.

Well, I'd recmmend ghost and PartitionMagic 8. You can get the combo pack for about $55 from most major retailers i believe...Then there's the "friendwarez" network...

No, you don't need to buy it, unless you really want to. I've supplied the link to you, so just go ahead and DL it. And you don't need Partition Magic to clone the HDD. I use Ghost all the time and I've never needed PM for anything.

I used acronis when I got a new hdd for a systm a few months back. Worked like a charm putting the unformatted HDD into a USB2 enclosure. Pretty much did everything all by itself.

Yeah, there is a link to the file on the 2nd page of somms' PDF guide. Create the boot CD and use this command line to get into Ghost:

ghost -ghostoncd -bootcd -auto

good luck with it!

EDIT: Also, check this guide for a few special points on HDD cloning with Ghost:

http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_4.htm

Another way to do it, besides cloning, is to just create an image of your present HDD with Ghost.

Go ahead and install the new HDD on your PC, and format it with the XP disc or fdisk. Then, just restore the image of your original HDD to it with Ghost.

Another vote for acronis.. faster and easier to use than norton ghost.

I just mounted my new drive in a firewire enclosure. Booted under Linux, partitioned the drive, used dd to copy the old partitions over and then swapped the drives. I always have a spare 2.5" firewire enclosure handy anyway, they're only $15, and I work on Linux all the time so it doesn't cost me extra time or money.

n/m

No problem......

To perform a disk to disk clone with the Ghost 2003 Boot CD:

1. Boot the computer using the Ghost boot CD. This automatically starts Ghost. Be patient, it may take up to a minute.

2. Click OK when the Ghost screen appears.

3. On the Ghost main menu....

Click Local > Disk > To Disk.

4. In the Source Drive dialog box, select the source disk.

5. In the Destination Drive dialog box, select the destination disk (the external). Choose carefully as this is the disk that will be overwritten.

6. Click OK.

7. When the "Proceed with disk clone?" prompt appears, click Yes to proceed with the disk cloning.

The system performs an integrity check of the file structure on the source disk, and then copies the source disk to the destination.

(If you need to abort the process press Ctrl+C, but be aware that this leaves the destination disk in an unknown state.)

Ghost now copies the source disk to the destination disk. When done, Ghost displays a window that indicates the process has finished.

8. Click OK. This returns Ghost to the Ghost main menu.

9. Click Quit.

10. Remove the Ghost boot CD and turn off the computer.

11. Physically remove the source drive from the computer and install the cloned drive.

12. Restart the computer.