Cloning Partitions from M1530 for use on m1210

Here's what I'm trying to do.

I have an xpsm1210 laptop which came with dell recovery partition but which I erased shortly after I got it. I wish I hadn't

I also have an xps m1530 laptop which has all its partition as set up by dell.

I am going to replace the hard drive in my m1210 laptop with a bigger one - the same size as the one in my m1530 laptop - 320 Gb

I would like to

1) clone the HDD in my m1530 to a new 320 Gb disk including all partitions - os, recovery, diagnostics, media direct, recovery
2) I will then put this in my m1210 laptop and wipe the OS from the os partition and reinstalling vista from the disks that came with my m1210 laptop
3) I was then going to use imagex (as discussed elsewhere) to image the os partition and place the image in the dell recovery partition so I can use it to restore my os using windows recovery

Will this work?

 

Just use the DVDs, this isn't going to work at all.

 

Well that's a negative reply! Why not? I would like the convenience of pressing Fn 8 on my laptop and being able to restore to a "factory" image. This plan seems very similar to one I found mentioned here - http://www.notebookforums.com/thread194290.html

Sure I could use the DVDs but that's not my question.

 

There is nothing convenient about this method. The factory image is garbage.

 

are you missing the point. I will customise my os before i make a restore image of it. What is more convenient than being able just to press Fn8 at boot up and restore to a clean copy of your os tailored to your needs?

 

So it worked. Here's what I did

1) Use Acronis True image to clone the drive on my 1530 which had - dell utility partition, restore partition, os partition, and media direct partition
2) Put the cloned drive into my m1210 and confirmed that the OS booted up and that the F8 advanced recovery option worked
3) Reinstalled a fresh copy of vista premium over the OS
4) Confirmed that the new OS partition booted OK and that the F8 advanced recovery was still present
5) Loaded all software that I wanted into the OS - AVG free, office, etc
6) Made a factory image of my new OS complete with add-ins. Here's how:
- copied folder called tools from the dell recovery partition to a USB drive
- restarted computer and hit F8 to go to advanced options
- clicked repair my computer
- selected command prompt from menu
- opened the tools folder on my usb drive
- captured an image of my os partition by using imagex - command is imagex.exe /capture c: d:/factory.wim "USB Drive"

where d:/factory.wim "USB drive" part should be the usb file
and c: is the OS partition

- waited for image to be made

7) restarted computer booting into OS
8) copied my factory.wim from the USB drive to the dell recovery partition placing in the folder called dell/image/ and overwriting the existing image that was there
9) Confirmed this had worked by rebooting and pressig F8 - repair my computer - restore dell factory image - and hey presto OS partition formatted and factory image used to restore my OS

Complicated but it definitely works!

PS: I also used Acronis Disk Director to create a new partition on my drive which did not affect my ability to use F8 function