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How to transfer data to a new HD?

post #1 of 11
6/21/05 at 10:50pm
Thread Starter 
Hi, i just bought a new hard drive and was wondering how do i go about transfering all of my data to my new HD? What equipment do i need? Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:06pm
Im fixing to undertake this myself. If you have a plug and play HDD that doesnt have to be recognized by the BIOS, then it should (in theory) be as simple as point click and drag. Software might be required to do a full system backup....I dunno, as i havent got that far yet.
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post #3 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:21pm
You'll need a desktop or a usb hard drive enclosure or the hard drive caddy for your i8600. If going the desktop route, pull the drive out and buy a laptop hard drive to standard hard drive ide adapter. Put it in the desktop and run Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image to back up the drive onto the desktop's hard drive. Then put the new drive into the desktop and restore the data. Plug the new laptop drive into your i8600's HD tray and boot up. You'll be ready to go.

With the USB enclosure, you just run the backup software right on the laptop and back up to the new drive directly. Swap the old drive for the new one and your a good to go.

The HD caddy route would be the same way.

Now, this takes into account that you are just replacing the drive in the same system. Using Explorer to copy over everything won't work.

Sorry if I am brief on the details but I have done this so often that I may have forgotten to tell you something. So ask away.
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post #4 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:26pm
Sorry to post jack this topic, but I just got a LaCie 250Gb external drive for use on backing up important documents and system imaging. So I will need Norton Ghost or the like.....Where can I get a copy???
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post #5 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:31pm
you can use teh external drive to backup... backup up to external, put in new drive into laptop, restore from backup. As for where to get Ghost or Acronis True Image? Go buy it, probably the most useful program ever made.

On a side note, I have a default WindowsXP backup image with a full system customized with all the apps and settigs I use. I can destroy my system and restore it in 15 minutes to like new. Most people take hours to do a reinstall, for me its a 15 minute affair. =)
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post #6 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:52pm
BE CAREFUL about using Acronis TI8 right now. Mucho problems w/ their current/latest build 859. Just check out the discussions on wilderssecurity.com Acronis forum. I personally can't get TI8 to reconize my external HD when in DOS........I just purchased/downloaded it from newegg last week. Acronis seems to treat their builds as betas for their customers to test for them.
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post #7 of 11
6/21/05 at 11:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by cubbie5150
BE CAREFUL about using Acronis TI8 right now. Mucho problems w/ their current/latest build 859. Just check out the discussions on wilderssecurity.com Acronis forum. I personally can't get TI8 to reconize my external HD when in DOS........I just purchased/downloaded it from newegg last week. Acronis seems to treat their builds as betas for their customers to test for them.
The version in the 1100's is what updated to and I have zero problems with both usb and firewire external drives.
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post #8 of 11
6/22/05 at 12:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by hrana
The version in the 1100's is what updated to and I have zero problems with both usb and firewire external drives.
You must have the corporate version.....
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post #9 of 11
6/22/05 at 12:47am
Quote:
Originally Posted by paradigm_1
Hi, i just bought a new hard drive and was wondering how do i go about transfering all of my data to my new HD? What equipment do i need? Thanks in advance.
I assume you want to "clone" your old HDD to your new one right ? If that's the case, get the apricorn Ez-GigII with the PCMCIA card, plug the card with the dongle to your new HDD and the leave it overnight, you'll have a perfect clone the next morning.

Your other choice is Ghost or TrueImage but I'm not sure if the clone as well as Ez-GigII with a bootable clone drive.
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post #10 of 11
6/22/05 at 1:46am
Everyone here has good suggestions. But I loathe paying for software after buying good hardware.

I recommend attaching the second hard drive any way you can, and booting a linux dist off of your cd-rom. Simply google for various instructions and copy your internal disk to the external disk, bit by bit with 'dd.'

Easy.

- Attach drive.
- Boot gentoo Live CD, or Fedora, or whatever for that matter off of your CDROM.
- Make sure both hard disks are mounted with 'df' command.
- execute a dd command to copy, bit for bit, to your new drive (this will circumvent problems with NTFS, FAT, and ext3)
- Put the external drive in your laptop, and boot it.
- Bam. Cheapo, and uber geek disk clone.
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post #11 of 11
6/22/05 at 12:38pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks everyone for your time and effort in helping me.
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