advise on changing hard drive -Dell latitude D600

clearlyn

Hi All
First post(normally on Satellite board) on the computer board.
I have a noisy Dell latitude D600 18GB hard drive and would like to replace it with a new hard drive of similar capacity.
I have seen drives for sale on the net for €130 approx.
Question :
Is it possible to transfer the entire contents of my existing disk including operating system on the new drive??

clearlyn

is ther anybody out there??

still would welcom any advice on the post above

Occidental

clearlyn wrote:

Hi All
First post(normally on Satellite board) on the computer board.
I have a noisy Dell latitude D600 18GB hard drive and would like to replace it with a new hard drive of similar capacity.
I have seen drives for sale on the net for €130 approx.
Question :
Is it possible to transfer the entire contents of my existing disk including operating system on the new drive??

Any 2.5" 9.5mm drive will do, though €130 for a 20gb drive sounds very steep.

There are a number of ways to clone laptop drives and this is but one.

1. Get a copy of Norton Ghost (cloning software)
2. Get an IDE to 2.5" adapter cable (Maplins part ZV01, or wherever else you can find one)
3. Get your hands on a normal desktop PC that you can use to clone the disks.
4. Load Ghost on the desktop PC.
5. Fit IDE adapter cable to desktop PC and connect your original drive.
6. Start Ghost > Backup > Select original drive > Create an image file of your original drive on the desktop PC's hard disk.
7. Replace your original drive with your new drive on the desktop PC
8. Start Ghost > Restore > Select your image file & restore to your new drive.
9. Install your new drive in the laptop and cross your fingers.

Good luck

Pat

Fionn

Hi
This might help

Some HD manufacturers supply cloning software for their products, for instance Maxtor have a free product called “Maxblast” which will clone your HD, don’t know if it’s for 2.5" drives but i imagine it would.

Actually as I’m writing this I see a copy of “Paragon” “DRIVE COPY” which is a cloning prog on a magazine cover disk DVD (PC Plus issue 220 Sep 2004). Check out their website they might have it as a free download.

sceptre

Occidental wrote:

though €130 for a 20gb drive sounds very steep.

Indeed it does.

Komplett's current list of 2.5" 9.5mm IDE drives is a little more pocket friendly.

clearlyn

Thanks all
You and the board.ie are fantastic.
Although i will probally be back looking for more advice !!!

tribble

Cloning your drive is all well and good but...

1. Think people, it's a laptop, 1 single channel IDE port. - If you want to clone the drive you're going to have to do it on a normal PC, and that will require a laptop hard drive adaptor cable (or two if the PC's main hard drive hasn't go the capcaity to act as an intermediary).

2. You are really better off with a clean install - Do you have the windows CD?

3. Two and a half inch hard drives a simply not noisy. - Are you sure it's the hard drive that's making the racket? - It's more likly to be the processor fan or some other cooler.

RicardoSmith

Well a drive thats about to fail could (but granted, not always) be noisy.

Why use a desktop? Personally I'd buy an external USB 2.5 enclosure. Put the new drive in that, partition and format it. Copy my data across. Then swap the drives. New drive in Laptop, old drive in external enclosure. Then reinstall the OS on the new drive. In that way you'd have two copies of your data and could use the old drive for portable storage before you archive it to something like CD/DVD etc. I have a couple of external 3.5 USB drives which I use for extra storage with my laptop. Very handy. Also means when I need to reinstall my OS that all my data is backed up elsewhere and if the laptop is stolen or damaged I can use the USB drive with any other PC/Laptop to get my data.