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Changing laptop HDD from 500GB to 2TB

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  • 11-05-2016 8:27pm
    #1
    kingtut
    Registered Users Posts: 6,487 ✭✭✭


    Hi I have a 500GBB HDD in my laptop and I was wondering if I could upgrade it to a 2TB? Basically swap out the drives or would this cause an issue does anyone know?

    The size of both drives is the same so that's not an issue and I'll obviously have to figure out some way of copying over all of the files but I don't see that being an issue either (I'm guessing I can use a USB to SATA adapter and connect both drives to another laptop).


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    #2
    me_irl
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,400 ✭✭✭me_irl


    The new drive will have to have an operating system.

    You can "ghost" your old one to the new using something like http://clonezilla.org/ although, this might cause problems if you're on windows 10. Not sure if that locks you to the devices hardware.


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    #3
    bonzodog2
    Registered Users Posts: 6,210 ✭✭✭bonzodog2


    you'd want to check the BIOS would support it


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    #4
    kingtut
    Registered Users Posts: 6,487 ✭✭✭kingtut


    me_irl wrote: »
    The new drive will have to have an operating system.

    You can "ghost" your old one to the new using something like http://clonezilla.org/ although, this might cause problems if you're on windows 10. Not sure if that locks you to the devices hardware.

    I'm still on Windows 7 so hopefully that won't be an issue but I'll check it out. Thanks for your help :)
    bonzodog2 wrote: »
    you'd want to check the BIOS would support it

    Never thought of that! I'll have a look, thank you so much I really appreciate it.


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    #5
    PeterTheEighth
    Registered Users Posts: 3,930 ✭✭✭PeterTheEighth


    I'm a big fan of CloneZilla, use it every day and it's incredible.


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    #6
    ZENER
    Registered Users Posts: 6,163 ✭✭✭ZENER


    Large capacity hard disks in a laptop are simply a disaster waiting to happen. Have you a way to back up that amount of data ? One knock while the drive is accessing and it could be all gone.

    Ken


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    #7
    Capt'n Midnight
    Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,855 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    If you have a DVD that's easily removable then you could replace that with another Hard Drive Bay and have two drives in the laptop. Also makes cloning the drive easier.


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    #8
    kingtut
    Registered Users Posts: 6,487 ✭✭✭kingtut


    ZENER wrote: »
    Large capacity hard disks in a laptop are simply a disaster waiting to happen. Have you a way to back up that amount of data ? One knock while the drive is accessing and it could be all gone.

    Ken

    I do regular backups and so I'm in little danger of losing anything critical. Also I'm keeping the old 500GB so I have a backup of the operating system etc.
    Capt'n Midnight wrote: »
    If you have a DVD that's easily removable then you could replace that with another Hard Drive Bay and have two drives in the laptop. Also makes cloning the drive easier.

    I didn't know the DVD drive could be converted to a harddrive bay, that's cool! Although I do use DVDs on occasion so I'll probably leave it alone for now.

    I managed to clone the drive in the end with software called AOMEI Backupper (free online) and it worked a treat. No issues so far and I have a nice 1.5TB partition setup for movies and tv shows :)


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    #9
    Alanstrainor
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 23,157 Mod ✭✭✭✭Alanstrainor


    kingtut wrote: »
    I do regular backups and so I'm in little danger of losing anything critical. Also I'm keeping the old 500GB so I have a backup of the operating system etc.



    I didn't know the DVD drive could be converted to a harddrive bay, that's cool! Although I do use DVDs on occasion so I'll probably leave it alone for now.

    I managed to clone the drive in the end with software called AOMEI Backupper (free online) and it worked a treat. No issues so far and I have a nice 1.5TB partition setup for movies and tv shows :)

    It's not possible to replace the DVD drives on all laptops, it depends on the machine. But if it is possible, you could buy a cheap SSD (they're cheap anyway), and use that as your boot disk and put your 2TB disk in the DVD slot and have the best of both worlds.


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