HD 1:1 Imaging question?

hello all

i have Western Digital Scorpio Blue 320GB 5400RPM SATA-II 8MB Cache - OEM (WD3200BEVT installed on my laptop.

i want to install a faster HD and dont want to go through the whole installation process of S/W etc.

i was thinking of upgrading to a faster Western Digital Scorpio Black 320GB 7200RPM SATA-II 16MB Cache.


is there a way i can just image my current HD to the newer one with out too much hassle so it will be a perfect clone?

Thanks

Yes, you can do it with Acronis True Image WD Edition (free to owners of a WD HDD).

edit: obviously you'll need to have both drives attached simultaneously - it just occurred to me it might be a bit tricky in a laptop. If there's no easy way, you could get a 2.5" SATA USB enclosure (only cost you a few quid), install the new drive in it, clone the old drive to the new one, then swap them over and you can use the old drive in the USB case for extra storage, backup or whatever. :)

thanks a lot, that will help

so this will clone the parition with out the need of reinstallation and all that hassle?

Yup. :)

right all i need now is 2.5 hd caddy that supports usb or esata.

thanks a lot for your help

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ati

so this will clone the parition with out the need of reinstallation and all that hassle?

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Well it should, but I've run into problems recently.

I have a 120GB drive in my netbook, and cloned it onto a 500GB drive. It wouldn't boot, the Windows 7 installer couldn't repair it to make it book either.

So I left the 120GB drive as a backup and fully intact and re-installed W7 on the 500GB drive, worked first time. So I don't know what was going on with the cloning from Acronis, but it wasn't working properly.

I can't remember if Vista could do this, but with W7 you can backup a complete image of your system and use that as the basis for a fresh install, that might be woth a try.

ohh right.

no idea how i will have a look.

Hello Ati,

You might want to check out the FAQ at Microsoft, it has links and such for backup procedures as well as restore procedures.

windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Back-up-and-restore-frequently-asked-questions

Good luck!
John M
Microsoft Windows Client Support