Sony Vaio, new HD upgrade. No XP disc

Hello,

Long, but I appreciate if you bear with me.

PC: 2006 Sony Vaio VGN FJ290 laptop, presently has an 80GB/5400 factory HD. Old and now slooooow. Moved a lot of stuff off it and increased the ram....it's just an old drive that I think will inevitably fail.

I want to upgrade the hard drive to a larger and faster drive, 7200/16 mb, as a present to my wife, who flat refuses to get another pc. LOL. Not sure why.

-No XP OS disc came with the system when originally purchased new in 2006

-I do have an empty external 2.5 USB enclosure that I can use.

Q: Can I do this?

a) Put the new hard drive in the enclosure, format it from the Vaio.
b)Clone the entire old drive, to the new drive that's in the enclosure.
c) Remove and install the new drive into the Vaio.

Sounds too simple.

Q: Now installed in the Vaio, will the new clone drive boot and operate with no further tweaking?

Q: Again, the original system never came with an XP CD. So am I to assume that the clone will copy the XP OS as well and the boot files?

Q: If this will work, what cloning software (free or not) would work? Any tips on doing this or is this pretty much follow the software prompts.

Q: If the above method of swapping the drives is not the way, then how on earth do I make a usuable copy of the XP OS that will boot on a blank drive? Is the issue with XP that if a bootable cd copy of the OS is created by that computer then that computer will recognize it, so it is usable?

I know a lot of questions. And I do appreciate you reading this. I am not a tech person at all and am limited to my experience of upgrading drives in my mac, but in that case(s) I used time capsule in a large 3.5 external and had a SL DVD OS if needed, so it was pretty straightforward, install new drive, boot to external, time capsule to new drive.

You comments, suggestions, input, will be greatly appreciated, I don't always ask the right question so feel free to enlighten me.

Regards
DonCarlos

 

Not many computers come with recovery discs, which was also true in 2006. Most manufacturers give you the option to burn off a set of recovery discs. You might want to look for that on your Sony if you've not formatted it already.

The case will work if it has the right connector on the inside. Your drive uses SATA, but if your case has the older PATA connection, it won't work. Cases are pretty cheap on eBay and you can use the old drive for extra storage or backups.

I use True Image myself. Hit SlickDeals and FatWallet. Sometimes you can find it cheap if you don't mind rebates. If you buy a Seagate or Western Digital drives, they offer their own branded free versions of True Image on their websites. That would make the Momentus XT an excellent choice. Good Luck.

 

doncarlos,

Yes, what you describe will work.

This is what I would do in your situation:

Download and install the trial of Acronis True Image.

If the 2006 notebook has a SATA HD installed, buy a Momentus XT 500GB HD and install in your external enclosure.

Connect the enclosure to your computer and do a custom clone.

Use just enough space for C: drive to ensure it will hold any software you/your wife needs to install in the future (80GB should be plenty for this system, but the less, the better - to get it as small as possible, move as much data off as you can before you do this step). Begin the clone and when finished, switch HD's.

When you boot up the system with the new drive, right-click on My Computer, select Manage and then select Disk Management again.

Right click on the unpartitioned space (the remainder left on the 500GB HD that is left over from what you decided to use for C: drive) and make another partition.

Move all your data to this new partition.

Download and install PerfectDisk 11 trial (or, better, buy it).

Run an offline and an online defrag with PD11, twice.

When this is finished, set PD to run in StealthMode and forget about manually running PD again.

Enjoy the new-found life in your 'old' computer.

Good luck.

 

Thank both of your for your replies and information.

I am glad to find out that I can do the external HD route. Great information. Thanks again. I am sure she will enjoy having a better functioning computer.

 

Well I downloaded free trial of Acronis TI 2001, and after installing, I noticed they had a note on the menu's Cloning Drive, that the feature does not work for free trial version.

So I think I will try the Acronis Easy Migration 7 download the free trial and see if that works. Eventually I will find the right free tool. I think Acronis wised up to the fact that people (like I was intending...LOL) used the free trial and then abandoned buying the software.

 

Acronis Easy Migration 7 free trial. Nope. Got to the end to commit to the clone and said, not available on free trial.

May actually have to buy one.

 

There should be a free tool too. Maybe Clonezilla...

 

Thanks, appreciate the suggestion.

Now I am wondering why larger drive that her pc can even run. Take a look at this discussion, which mention s our specific pc model. Seems that anything over 137 GB the BIOS has trouble with at some point it will crash.

Older Laptop, >137GB Drive - Hard-Disks - Storage

Wonder if anyone out there with a VGN FJ series has experienced this or what size drive did they ultimately use? Can it run a 7200 rpm?

I think that my primary objective is to be able to use a 7200, and if that means a smaller drive like a 120GB then so be it.

 

This is worked around easily; simply use an install partition smaller than 137GB and once Windows is installed, use Disk Management to create another (DATA) partition.

I would still use the biggest/fastest HD available: the 500GB Momentus XT Hybrid.

If you're going to go to all this trouble, might as well have something to show for it!

Good luck.

 

See if there's a BIOS update for your model that supports larger partitions; otherwise just use a bunch of partitions that are each under the size limit.

 

swarmer, actually only the boot partition needs to be smaller than 137GB.

Once Windows is loaded, the additional partitions can be (almost) any size.

Good call on checking the availability of a BIOS update.

 

Thanks for the information So really the issue is with the boot partiton, so if I keep that under the limit, that's good to know. Also, I will check on the BIOS update.

Also, Sony support sucks LOL, you guy's are Tops !

 

Hehe... Sony...

Try here for any updates:

See:
Sony eSupport - VGN-FJ290 - Software Updates & Drivers


Also, don't believe that the updated BIOS is only for the issues that are admitted to.

Good luck.