Subj : Re: Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive To : All From : james@nospam.com Date : Thu Jan 31 2019 19:16:21 Path: eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!news.eternal-september.org !feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: james@nospam.com Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Subject: Re: Cloning a 2.5" IDE/PATA Laptop Hard drive Date: Mon, 06 Nov 2017 18:38:26 -0600 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 107 Message-ID: References: <2e49F9HceGAaFw0R@soft255.demon.co.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: TKghX/mglWkVW1qxlGBsyg.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652 X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.2 Xref: news.eternal-september.org microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:134445 On Mon, 6 Nov 2017 13:46:04 +0000, "J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote: >In message , >james@nospam.com writes: >>I have an old Lenovo t-43 laptop running XP. It has a 40gb hard drive, >>which is too small for my needs. With the OS, and the programs I use, >[] >>80gb hard drive. I found a 160gb drive for $3 more than an 89gb, so I >>bought the 160gb. >> >>I dont have the drive yet, but when I get it, I want to clone the >>current drive to the new one, so I dont have to reinstall everything. >>But how do I do this? >> >>Laptops dont have space for a second HDD. (at least mine dont). > >Does it have an optical drive? >> >>I have one of those cable kits that is for hooking any 3.5" IDE or SATA >>drive to a USB port. It dont have the plug for these 2.5" drives, so I >>assume I will have to buy one made for these 2.5" laptop drives. > >All the ones I've seen have a plug with two sides to it: one for the >3.5" drives, and one for the 2.5" drives. (With the ones that do SATA as >well having the SATA connector in the middle of that plug.) I'd be >surprised if, if it does SATA, it doesn't also do 2.5". >> >>(Do they sell adaptor kits for these laptop drives?) >>(Are they labeled for these kind of drives)? >> >>Once I buy the adaptor, I think all I have to do is run Partition Magic >>8, (which I have) to clone the drive. > >Cloning _from within the OS you're running_ is IMO flaky to do, though >some utilities (certainly Macrium, I don't know about PM) claim to be >able to. If you'll be running it on another computer, i. e. just using >the drive passively, that should be fine. > >Make sure you clone C: and any unlettered ("hidden") partitions. (For a >40G drive, just cloning the whole drive is probably easiest.) >> >>But once it's cloned, will it boot, or do I need to do something to make >>it bootable? > >When I did it - though I imaged C: and the hidden to an image on an >external drive, then restored from that image to the new (bigger) drive, >rather than cloning - it booted, though the first time some Samsung >recovery software cut in and offered to run (it's a Samsung netbook), so >I let it, and after a few minutes my old desktop appeared as before. (I >then used a partition manager to enlarge C: and recreate D:. It is >possible I might have been able to do that at the restoring-image stage: >I just wanted to do one thing at a time.) >> >>But then I was wondering if it's possible to clone the drive to a 64gb >>flash drive, then clone it from the flash drive to the new HDD? The only >>problem there, is that this computer can not be booted from a USB drive, >>so I will probably have to borrow a newer laptop to clone from the USB >>to the new HDD. > >Sounds like you only have the one PC, so you would ... >> >>Will that even work? >> >> >But, especially given that you have that cable set, I'd get another >drive - whatever's cheapest, probably a 3.5" SATA one; that way you can >image the present drive to the external drive, IMO using a boot CD made >using Macrium or Acronis so you don't have to do it from inside XP, then >(again using the boot CD) restore from the image to the new drive: that >way, you'll still have the external drive to make backup images on in >future. Always good to make backups! (As I know to my cost! my HD just >stopped spinning one day; the heads (or probably only one) had stuck to >the platter, probably due to overheating. Fortunately, when I gave up >all else and actually opened the drive in a clean cabinet, I was able to >free them/it, and the drive then worked well enough to extract the >image.) Thanks for all the replies. I bought on ebay, two 40 pin (3.5" drive) to 44pin (2.5" laptop drive) connectors. Here is the plan, I hope it will work. I have a desktop puter with XP booting from a SATA drive. There is a IDE connector on the motherboard. The plan is to connect both the old 40gb drive and the new 160gb drive to that IDE connector, using those adaptors. I hope it boots from the SATA drive, not the OS on that 40gb drive. (I dont know if there is a way to control that). If it works to that point, I will simply run Partition Magic from the boot drive, and clone that 40gb to the 160gb drive. Ques: If I clone that whole 40gb drive, will I get a 40gb partition on the new drive? Actually, that would be fine. I will keep the 40gb partition as the boot one, and the remaining 120gb will be for downloading and storing videos and music. Before cloning, I may dump my current music and videos to a flash drive, so there is less to clone. THe main thing that needs to be cloned is the OS and the programs. I can move that file storage back from the flash drive later. One other thing, will XP need to be re verified with MS due to the new hard drive? --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.1 * Origin: Prison Board BBS Mesquite Tx //telnet.RDFIG.NET www. (1:124/5013) .