Any tips for switching hdds for m11x?

My momentus xt hybrid drive will arrive on tuesday, but I figure I get started and see if I get some advice from people who switched out their hdds. I know I have to remove the bottom panel, but are there any sort of tricks to it?

Also, I need as little downtime as possible so should I just clone my original hard drive and transfer it to the new one?

 

Cloning is the fastest way.

To swap out the drive, remove all the screws on the bottom plate, remove it, then take out the hdd.... done.

 

Yep, I agree. As long as it's not an SSD cloning is probably the way to go.

 

So when I clone the drive, it'll be stored in a file and I can just open it up and install it in the new drive, right?

 

thats an image - which will work... might be your only option if you don't have the hardware. It is possible to clone (copy) as a process without creating an image.

I prefer image if you have a way to store it. Great way to have a backup

 

Ok, new question: I just made an image file on an external hdd. How do I get it to auto boot when I install my new internal hdd?

 

Hi, here's a M11X disassembly video from the Alienware YouTube channel; you can use it as a guide to replace your hard drive.

In regards to make the system boot from the new HDD the first thing you need to do is to install the operating system on it. Here's an article from the Dell support site with the instructions in how to do that. You are going to need either an external optical drive if you have the Windows CD or a flash drive with the OS installed on it.

 

What software did you use? Some will require the os to be installed then you do a restore on top. Others you can boot from CD etc and restore to blank drive.

 

I'm using macrium (sp?) reflect. I can't use my new hdd because I keep getting some black screen talking about PCI-E connections or something. This has been stressing me out for the past two days.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/543836-m11x-r2-momentus-xt-problem.html

I have not used that drive or swapped any in the M11x but there might be some connections to consider (see link).

You do not boot from the disk with the image btw. I would guess from the software you have that the easiest is their linux recovery cd.

 

I know what problem the user encountered, and I addressed that, but I have to get windows on to the drive even though I already have a cloned image installed onto the XT. For some odd reason, I can't actually boot into the hdd.

 

UPDATE: I switched out my HDDs after 2 whole days of metaphorical pain. I have to reinstall everything now since the drivers and firmware didn't work properly (I can't get a clone of my original HDD running).

I literally had to copy and paste almost all of my files into the new HDD because of that. Also, some files aren't transferring properly because I have to have some sort of "TrustedInstaller" permission or something.

I'm practically hysterical since the whole ordeal has caused my original HDD to not even boot up (I deleted the recovery partition in the original HDD and now I can't even boot the original HDD up).

All my drivers, firmware, programs, documents, data, etc, has to be reinstalled... What a pain in the a$$.