Need some verification on Dell Laptop Drive upgrade procedure

My wife has a Dell e1505 that's close to running out of space. I am trying to copy the drive to a larger drive. I initially use a partition utility to take a look at the partition table, but was puzzled by the layout. I did some research on Dan GoodDell's site at http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/index.htm and figured out the issue:

1. The drive appears to be a HPA Media 2 with 5 partitions:
a) Dell Utility Partition
b) Windows XP Partition
c) Backup Partition
d) Dell PC Restore Partition
e) MediaDirect Partition (hidden HPA)

2. In the past, I use Acronis TrueImage to copy the drive to a new one. Unfortunately, because HPA stores info in the LBA3 sector, this will cause the new drive to have the same size as the old drive.

3. There's no easy way to copy HPA any way.

After some reading, I figure my plan of attack would be the following:
1. Reinstall MediaDirect 2.0 from the CD. This will wipe out the HPA and replace it with a D7 partition. This should wipe out the LBA3 and replace it with a custom Dell MBR that doesn't use LBA3.
2. Now I can use Acronis TrueImage to copy entire drive over. During copy, I'll resize the XP partition to have the greater space.
3. If there are MBR problems afterward, I can run the Dell Mediadirect MBR repair utillity.

Is this right, I don't want to mess up my wife's drive.

 

cant you do this at some computer shop- send the hdd, they will copy and give you both drives back? i have no idea if that is correct

 

I fear you'll need to format the drive to reinstall the Mediadirect partition... (it is so with MD 3 and 3.3). If you're correct about the inability to clone the complete drive, here's what you could do:

a) backup documents and personal files to eg a dvd or usb stick, reinstall everything from scratch -- cleanest solution, takes the longest (+/- 1 day)
b) Use a backup tool to backup the C drive and reinstall Mediadirect.

Either way, you're losing the pc restore and dell backup partitions... (but is this a bad thing, imho no)

 

Do you even use Media Direct? I would just reinstall on the new hard drive and then transfer your files from the old to the new, so that you will start with a clean slate.

 

The problem is that mediadirect is already install on the original hard disk. This mean it will have info in LBA3 in the MBR. If I just clone the drive, it will cause the new drive to be the same size as the original. The only way to get around this is to zero out the LBA3 sector, that seems more dangerous than reinstall MediaDirect.

I do not however have MD3, just MD2.


I am trying to retain all of the partition because my wife don't like the configuration to change. If it were me, I would have just erase them.

I read through the documentation some more

 

Rats, it appears that rubenvb is correct and cannot reinstall media direct without wiping out your hard drive. What about doing the following:

1. Install MediaDirect on new drive.
2. Use Acronis to migrate the partitoins but without the MBR.
3. Run Dell's MBR fix utility.

I think that should work?

Paul

 

I don't think doing that would work the way mediadirect maps out itself, but give it a try. Just be sure to let us know if it actually succeeds if it does.

 

OK, I contacted Dell, who then sent me the disc that were missing from the package. I told them to send an XP disc and a Mediadirect. I asked what version, but they could not tell except that it would be what's on the machine.

A few days later, I received the mediadirect disc and XP disc. Much to my surprise, it was Mediadirect 3 not Mediadirect 2 that's current on the disc.

Here's what I did to install it.

1. Backup the entire drive using Acronis Trueimage, though you can probably use other software. The old drive had several partition: Dell Utility, Windows XP, Backup, Dell Restore, and Media Direct (in HPA).

2. Install the new drive. This is when I notice that Dell left out the screws. Well they weren't important any way. I kept the old drive around in a static bag in case I screwup.

3. Run MediaDirect 3. This actually wipe out the drive and installs a Dell Utility partition at the beginning of the drive and a Media direct partition at the end of the drive (as a logical partition). This is probably why you cannot install Mediadirect 3 without destroying data. Note that there is an option to install a data partition, but I tend to avoid data partition to keep things simple.

4. Next I restore the Windows XP and Dell restore partition. I got rid of the Backup because it was originally setup for Ghost trialware and was too small to be useful any way.

Warning: Do not restore the MBR or your new drive will be screwed up by the special LBA-3 they use for the Mediadirect 2.

5. Next, I ran Dell's MediaDirect fix. This is suppose to fix the MBR. Unfortunately, the fix did not work complete. Mediadirect works fine, but the Dell Restore didn't boot when I hit CTRL-F11. I ran Dan Gooddell's DSR fix (despite his warning not to use it on Mediadirect 3 system) and it actually fixed everything. Now Dell Restore, Dell Utility, and Mediadirect works.

The software Lojack also restore itself and started phoning home.

Now the drive consists of:

Dell Utility
Windows XP
Dell Restore
MediaDirect (Logical partition).

This was actually easier than expect, just tedious as I wait for the volume to backup and restore.