Upgrading to a 250GB HDD, assistant needed

Hi, i am using a acer 5685WLMI laptop and the hard disk that comes with it is a 120GB hdd. I will like to upgrade it to a 250GB hdd, but i notice that there is a hidden partition(about 4GB) in my laptop. (i think is the recovery stuff). So the question is, can i buy the the 250GB and how do i transfer the hidden partition to my new hdd? Please assist i am not sure if i need any external software (freeware prefered) to do it.

and btw can my laptop support 250GB Sata? (currently running on 120GB Sata)

Thanks to all.

 

If you have access to Norton Ghost, than its easy.

You need bootable media with ghost (CD or external floppy via USB), put second disk into external bay connected via USB and boot machine.

- Launch Ghost, select copy disk (choose old one), destination is new disk
- decide how to partition disk -- proportionally as on old one or you want different sizes
- than you just apply settings and procedure begins

You don't have to worry about anything -- boot record is set and all partitions on new disk are perfectly defragmented.

Boot from new disk, device manager will detect new drive and instal driver, reboot and enjoy.

PS: in case that USB won't work and it's ATA drive, find "stationary" machine and plug both disks via 2.5-to-3.5 connector.

 

let me ask, I was not aware Norton Ghost had the capability to copy the entire physical disk. I have been doing logical backups (c: d: etc) but never a full physical backup.
I am using Norton Ghost 12, where do I find this option? Secondly how do I resize the various logical partitions in the new drive.
Have been failing miserably in upgrading my ACER 5920G to a 250gb drive.

any help appreciated/

 

I used Acronis True image to make an exact copy of my old HDD to my new HDD. its fast... ^^

 

boot off the orignal cd :>

 

I'm pullin' this out of my head as it's been over a year since I last did that

I have an older version, 8.1. Once installed on computer I made bootable floopy (but there is also CD option).

Booted from from floppy, menu appears and you have an option (assuming that both disks are connected)

Local -> from disk -> to disk
Local -> from partition -> to partition

... or something similar. Keep in mind that unregistred version doesn't have all options (serial number must be in ini file or manually typed once ghost starts).

Resizing ... after you choose disk-to-disk ghost asks how to do that: keep partitions proportionally or you wanna manually set partition sizes on new disk.

Here is some guide I googled for: http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_4.htm
Check screenshots

b.

PiEs: about resizing -- If you wanna resize partitions after ghosting you can use free program gparted ( http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/). Download linux based Live CD, boot from it and follow instructions. Works like a charm!

 

if u use Acronis True Image , u can configure the size of the partition. They will automatically measure the size for you but u can still change it.