swapping my laptop hard drive?

Hi,
I currently have a 250GB HDD in my vaio laptop.
I purchased a WD passport 500gb external to swap with my internal laptop drive.

So my question is that should i just attach the external through USB and copy all files or do i need to run some program to make the external identical to the internal??

please let me know. i dont want to mess up my windows and start all over again.


thanks alot for the help guys.

 

You need imaging software to do this. You can get Ghost or Acronis to do this.

Why not purchase a 500 GB OEM drive, they are alot cheaper..

 

You need to make an image of your current hard drive and apply that image to the new drive. Copy and paste will not work in this case.

Your not gonna try run windows externally are you?

 

Thank you guys for the reply.
No i am not planning on running Window on the external drive

I am planning on swapping the internal with the external.
But i have never done this before.

I came across this webpage which has a couple of ghosting software.
Have you guys tired any of these??
which one would u guys recommend??

thanks

 

Why would you do that? OEM internal drives are much cheaper than external drives.

I will have to admit Acronis is easier to use than Ghost, but it's the Coke or Pepsi debate both are good.

 

Ive had good experiences with Acronis True Image, give that a try first. Windows might ask you to re-authenticate your key because of the hardware change.

Just keep in mind some new external hard drives have soldered boards so you cant just pull it apart. Buying the enclosure and hard drive separately is a better option.

 

I picked up a WD passport external 500gb for $42 during thanksgiving thats why.
I will have to open it up to see if its soldered or not, hope not

 

Some WD Passport drives aren't even SATA. I saw a proprietary connector for one because the guy's USB was cracked and he extracted the drive.

 

yea, if its a mypassort essential SE then your screwed.

Its not that the SATA circuit board has USB soldered on. The circuit board is just USB just as tsunade said.

 

I think you guys are right and yes i am screwed
This is the one i got: Model WDBAAA5000ABK-NEWM
http://i54.tinypic.com/2v85wmt.jpg
Can you guys confirm if this one has soldered USB connector.

It does look very small so makes sense that USB connector must be soldered.
Any how i think i am gonna use it as an external now.

So which internal SATA should i get??

I personally think Hitachi or WD should cut it,
But please let me know what you guys recommend.

thanks for helping me out.

I really appreciate it.

 

Hitachi 7K500 - no question about it.

See:
Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar 7K500 HD20500 IDK/7K 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive


I know it shows out of stock right now, but just wanted you to know the specific version I bought:

HITACHI Travelstar 7K500 HD20500 IDK/7K 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

Good luck.

 

Are you after speed, capacity, battery life or cheapest price?

 

I definitely am looking at 500GB.
All my previous drives were 5400rpm.

so how much jump in performance am i looking at since i will be going from a 250gb 5400rpm to a 500gb 7200rpm??

My budget is $70 max.

Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Black WD5000BEKT 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
This one looks very good.


This one looks nice too but is out of my budget:
Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar H2IK5001672SP (0S02858) 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive

If the performance jump isn't that great that this could also be a good option:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Scorpio Blue WD5000BEVT 500GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive

please let me know guys thank you

My laptop has following config:
Sony Vaio VGN-CR 590 14" display
Dual Core T-8400MHz
3GB Ram
250gb 5400 HDD

 

Depending on how you use/expect out of your system, the difference can be pretty minimal if you follow a good defrag strategy with PD for example.

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-c-b-defrag-c-x-defraggler-perfectdisk10.html


The absolute difference though is pretty huge (about 40% or more).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...ba-mk3252gsx-vs-hitachi-7k500-real-world.html


I haven't been running a 4200/5400 RPM HD since 2003 with the 7K60 @ $500 buy in price (and yes, it was worth it even then).


To really let the new models fly though, you should consider partitioning them so that Windows is using the smallest partition it can get away with (while holding all your apps and enough free space of course).

See:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-hitachi-7k500-benchmark-setup-specifics.html


Good luck.

 

I just read your partition thread and will ask you some questions regarding that, but for now what would u recommend from the following:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=western_digital_640gb-_-22-136-459-_-Product $59

or
Newegg.com - HITACHI Travelstar H2IK5001672SP (0S02858) 500GB 7200 RPM 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive $69

Also i have 3GB Ram and am thinking of upgrading to 4GB thats the most my system can handle.

I mostly use my system for multi-tasking like surfing on chrome with 7-8 tabs open, downloading via jdownloader and listening to music in the background mostly itunes.

I also watch a lot of MKV 720p movies.
I usually back my movies to external drive every now and them, have plenty of external storage available to extra 140GB on WD doesn't make or break the deal.

thanks

 

1. Download a Linux Live CD
2. Burn it to a Disc
3. Insert it in to your CD/DVD Drive
4. Reboot PC
5. Set BIOS to Boot from Disc
6. Boot Into Environment
7. Insert External USB Drive
8. Open a Shell
9. Type
   Code:

   dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=64k conv=notrunc,noerror

10. Swap Your Drives (Some Assembly Required; Screwdriver Time!)
11. ???
12. PROFIT!

 

Definitely the Hitachi - you want speed, right?