Acer5552 hard drive replacement

Hi,

Recently my hard drive has decided to malfunction so I've ordered an identical replacement.

While its being shipped I've been doing a little reading on the process of restoring my notebook to its original state.. it's not as clear as I thought it would be. So I'd like to ask for as much detailed help as possible here.

I have an Acer 5552 Notebook, 500GB WD Scorpio Blue SATA, Windows 7 Home Prem OA, eRecovery Discs I created.

I read I may need a SATA-USB converter, I have no relevant HDD replacing software so please refer me to freeware if possible. I have an additional W7 notebook with DVD burning potential and a 16GB memstick.

What I have read so far and heard from Acer is I'll need to format and create a partition(s) prior to running the erecovery discs.
Some partitions should be NTFS and FAT32. D2D is enabled in the BIOS.


If someone could detail a guide for the easiest and cheapest possible method of doing this?

Thank you.

 

All you've heard is incorrect.

What you do is install HDD, go into BIOS and change boot order so the first boot device is DVD, save & reboot, place eRecovery DVD 1 in the tray and start the notebook.

It's like installing Windows from retail DVD but eRecovery also quips you with all the drivers and apps that came with the laptop when you bought it.

 

Excellent news, so these 3 DVD's (4 including the driver DVD) I created which the Acer software prompted me to do when i first used the notebook will format, partition, include Alt F10 functionality(MBR?), install Windows and recreate a new recovery partition exactly as the old hard drive had?

 

Everything except for the last part- DVDs won't recreate the recovery partition- just the visible partition(s).
So you won't be able to use D2D recovery.

 

I guess I could poll this but in your opinion is the D2D much of a great loss or should I pursue a method of replicating the old drive to the fullest.

While I'm here, what's the best way to back up a hard drive completely, eg.. installed progs/media

 

The only difference between D2D and eRecovery DVD is the speed and the fact that you always have recovery partition with you when on the road- otherwise both contain exactly the same data and do the same job.

 

Hard drive installed and recovery discs worked as stated. My system is running well.

Thanks and Merry Christmas.