m15x; cloning old hard drive to new using smartbay

ok so i finally got a new 500gb hard drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148374
and want to copy or clone everything from my old 160gb hard drive to the new one using the smartbay. What is the best way of doing this, and what software should i use?

Thanks for the help.

 

because there aren't sixteen billion threads about this topic, i'll suggest Norton Ghost, Acronis TrueImage (or something like that) or, if you're not inclined to pay, DriveImage XML.




on a side note, the first bit was sarcasm

 

CloneZilla - http://clonezilla.org/

 

I've run into further problems. I cloned the old hard drive onto the new one using norton ghost using the 'copy my hard drive' feature with the 'mbr' feature ticked. When it was done, the drive showed up in my computer with all the exact same files there under Local Disk (D so i was sure that everything had worked, but when i switched the new hard drive from the smartbay with the one currently in my laptop, and booted from the new hd i got the message 'missing os'.
im not sure where to go from here as im sure that all the files copied from the old one to the new but it refuses to boot from the new hd (i want to use the new one as my primary hd)
I'm not experienced at all with this procedure, help anyone?

 

Just copying data is not enough... what OS are you on Vista or XP ?

 

Cloning a hard drive via a smart bay? That's actually smart(no pun intended)! Smart on Alienware's part because you don't need to buy an external HD enclosure to do it or anything.

 

Are you booting from the Smart Bay or did you move that HD to the main caddy?

 

dont you have to put in the HD u cloned then get the install disk and boot up the windows disk and click repair MBR so the computer has the right boot record?...could be wrong though

 

I finally managed to boot from the new hard drive by activating the new hd in the disk management section in the computer management program but theres still something wrong.

I can boot from the new hd when its in the smartbay perfectly fine but when i switch it with the old one in the main caddy it boots vista the same way but when type in my password and log on it says something along the lines of 'setting up dektop' which takes forever and when its finally done loading it shows me a completely blank desktop with a light blue background and an oldschool xp look-a-like cursor, nothing else; so clearly something didn't go as planned..

im formatting the hd again at the moment to see if i did something wrong in the cloning process but il try booting up the windows disk and repairing the MBR when its done.

anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks again

 

Try this:
clone hdd
switch hdds
boot into vista dvd
click repair

 

you do, in fact, need to buy the smart bay cage... which is an external enclosure.

 

ok ive tried booting into the vista recovery dvd (the alienware system recovery dvd) and it doesnt even give me a menu.
i changed the boot order to boot from cd, it then asks me to press any key to continue, says something like 'windows is loading files' and then just goes straight to the installing vista menu, nothing about repairing anything.. this is turning out to be alot more frustrating than i thought it would be. anyone know how i can find the repair option?
Much appreciated

 

does anyone know if the alienware recovery dvd even has the vista repair option on there? cuz i cant find it anywhere and without it i cant properly boot from the new drive.

 

i think the dvd is just as it says....recovery...not repair...but then again i have not used it....

 

did you ever get it to work?
just got a new 500gb smart bay and want to switch it with the 160. anyone have steps to do this?

 

HDclone ........

 

It'll work just fine if you perform the clone/copy OUTSIDE of Windows, whenever you do it in windows the new disk drive gets installed into the Windows installation alongside the old one with the wrong drive letter, you then clone these settings into the new drive so when you boot up with the new drive only it still has the wrong drive letter so Windows will hang looking for things in it's C: drive which you removed instead of the D: drive where you've copied it to. If you do it outside of windows then when you boot into Windows again it installs the new drive as C: and has no problem finding the files it requires to run correctly. Just note that this procedure only works providing you dont boot into windows with both drives installed.

 

I already cloned my hard drive to the smart bay. I'm not sure what you mean outside of windows? Can I just switch the two drives now and boot into the alienware recovery dvd that came with my system?