How do I clone my laptop hard drive?

[davidstone28]

I have 40gb HDD in my laptop. It has a genuine (Dell) Windows installation but it doesn't come with the Windows CD.

However, I am planning to upgrade it to a 7200rpm 80gb drive.

Since I was preserve my original Windows / licence etc, how do I move all of it onto the 80gb drive?

I can't set the 80gb drive up as a slave as there is no second IDE connector....

I have Acronis True Image and a CD writer on the laptop drive if that helps?

[Funkstar]

I used one of the Acronis disk tools and hooked the new drive to a USB enclosure and it all work perfectly. It required a re-boot and the copy took place before the shell started. Simple. Mich easier than i thought it would be.

[davidstone28]

What if I don't have a 2.5" USB enclosure?

I suppose I could use a 3.5" HDD to clone to that, but then I have the problem of cloning it back onto a 2.5" HDD, unless you're saying its possible to boot from a 3.5" USB drive?

[chrestomanci]

I have done something similar, though it was on a desktop system.

You need: A knoppix disc and suficent familiarity with linux to use it (or a knowlegable friend who can help you), a USB hard drive or network share with 40Gb free space, a borrowed windows install disc.

Boot your laptop from the knoppix disc.

Bring up a command shell as root.

Using the dd command make a copy of the entire partion to your USB drive or network share. Something like:

dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/sda1/hard_drive_copy

Where hda1 is the boot partion on your laptop hard drive, and /mnt/sda1 is where your USB drive is mounted. You need to be very carefull to get the command right as if you get the if and of the wrong way round you will trash all your data.

Also use the cfdisk command to look at your partion table, and note down the exact size of that partion, down to the nearest byte.

cfdisk /dev/hda

Once all the data has been copied (it will take at least 10 minutes), shut down your system, install the new drive, and reboot into knoppix again.

Using cfdisk, create a root partion on the new drive that is exactly the same size as the one on the old one. You can partion the rest of the space any way you like, or leave it as unused untill later.

Then using the dd command, copy the data back.

dd if=/mnt/sda1/hard_drive_copy of=/dev/hda1

Once it has finsihed copying, shutdown and remove the knoppix disc, and attempt to reboot from the new hard drive. If it works, then you should find that everything works. You can use the windows adminastrative tools to create and format a partion on the second half of the laptop drive.

If the system does not boot, it is because the boot block on the new hard drive is not setup. You can fix this using the the borrowed windows install disc. You just boot from that, select 'repair' and it should fix it for you.

Alternatively, it is possible under linux to take a copy of the boot block, which can be restored to the new drive, but I don't know how.

[dave87]

Use ghost to create an image. Then apply it to your new hdd, as it will resize it and adjust windows volume information etc, that the other doesn't seem to do. Ghost also compresses it, so a fully filled 40gb hdd wont take up 40gb. If you get what I mean.

Dave

[Funkstar]

What if I don't have a 2.5" USB enclosure?

I suppose I could use a 3.5" HDD to clone to that, but then I have the problem of cloning it back onto a 2.5" HDD, unless you're saying its possible to boot from a 3.5" USB drive?

if you have a 3.5" drive enclosure you could get yourself a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter cable/board. Should only be a few £, Maplin have them (if you have a maplin near by) or a local computer/component shop probably would too. Unless you are in a hurry you could get a 2.5" enclosure off eBay for about a tenner too.

[5cupa]

i use a windows based program to dupliacte hardrives, just to click and your done, very fast. it works 100% (i dont know how) but check it out well worth the asking price and never let me down: Casper Xp

http://www.fssdev.com/

[peterb]

I have used Caspar - excellent program!