Re: Replacing Notebook Hard Drive
- From: Shyster <Shyster@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 20 May 2007 22:50:01 -0700
Malke,
Thanks for your useful advice. I cloned the defective HD over this evening,
and have been putting the computer through its paces with no problems
whatsoever.
Regards,
Shyster
"Malke" wrote:
Shyster wrote:.
Please forgive the repetitive nature of the question (I've gone through the
various other threads on the topic of replacing hard drives, but since I
haven't done a drive swap before, and I would rather not mess up my wife's
computer, I wanted to double-check with the more experienced members here).
I have an HP notebook with an apparently failing hard drive. HP sent me a
new drive (just barely under warranty) but, from what I can tell, no
instructions on how to transfer all the data (operating system, bundled
software, self-installed software, files, etc) from the old disk to the new
disk. The HP support people have been very nice, but not very helpful beyond
telling me the obvious (you have to install the operating system) and the
unhelpful (you have to manually re-install all your other programs).
In reading through the various posts on the topic, I saw several references
to creating an image of the original drive, swapping the drives out, and then
using the image to replicate the old drive on the new.
First, I want to be sure that I understand what I've read, and second, I
want to see if there are any special issues with doing this on a notebook
that has only one hard drive. Lastly, I would like to know whether this is a
fairly routine, reliable method of swapping out a defective drive, or whether
it's likely that I will have issues with the computer in the future if I do
it this way rather than the mind-numbing way of manually installing
everything all over again. Mind you, this is my wife's computer, so I will
take slow and mind-numbing over even a mild level of risk.
1. Back up important data first. This extra step will make sure that no
matter what happens, your wife's data is preserved. This is especially
crucial if, as you say, the hard drive is really failing. If the hard
drive physically fails, you will still be able to retrieve the data but
only by sending the drive to a professional data recovery company such
as Drive Savers. This will be quite expensive, starting at $500 USD and
going up from there. $1,500-$3,000 is a common range.
Put the laptop hard drive in either 1) an external usb hard drive
enclosure and attach it to a working computer to copy the data (just the
data); or 2) use a laptop drive adapter and directly slave the drive
inside a working computer.
2. Once you've done that, you can try imaging the drive so you can
restore that image to the new drive. You will need imaging software such
as Acronis True Image (my preference) or Ghost. You will install that
software on a different, working machine and then make a bootable cd.
Boot the laptop (with the drive you wish to image) with the bootable cd
and image it. You will need to put the image on a different hard drive,
of course. This is usually done with an external usb hard drive.
3. If the laptop drive didn't fail and you were able to make a
successful image, install the new drive into the laptop. Boot with the
bootable cd and have the external hard drive connected to the laptop.
Restore the image you just created.
4. If the laptop drive did fail and you weren't able to make a
successful image, then install XP the usual way from the HP recovery
disks. If you neglected to created the HP recovery disks or don't have
them, you will need to get them sent to you from HP. They usually only
cost around $25-30 USD. Once you have installed your operating system,
you can then install whatever programs you want and copy your wife's
data (which you saved in Step 1) onto the new installation.
As you can see, doing these things requires having some equipment,
software, and some computer skills. Only you know what you have. If all
this doesn't sound like your cup of tea, take the machine to a
professional computer repair shop and have them do it for you. This will
not be your local version of BigStoreUSA.
Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
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