Trouble making a recovery disc.

I'd like to upgrade my laptop's hard drive, but I did not pay for the backup discs at the time of purchase. As far as I know, the only way to get my OS onto the new HDD would be through a recovery disc.

I went to Start>Recovery Manager>Recovery Disc Creation and was greeted with the screen. After pressing next, I immediately receive the 'cancel' screen telling me "Cancellation in progress... Recovery disc creation will resume where you left off the next time you start the program", but it doesn't.

What are my options now? Is there another way to get my OS onto the new HDD?
Thanks.

 

I would recomment using acronis True Image Home 2009 or acronis Migrate Easy 7.0. Either can be downloaded at their website for free (15 day trial, but I don't think you would need it past 15 days so..).

If you go for the acronis TIH 2009 route, you will need an external hard drive capable of storing the amount of used GB on your current hard drive (for example if you have used 100GB out of a 160GB hard drive, you will need at least an 75-80GB external hard drive). You should burn an image of the hard drive (using acronis) and save it in the external one. Then make a bootable disk (using acronis, a feature) where you can boot off the optical drive first (change boot order in bios). Then change the hard drive out for the new one, boot from the optical drive, have the external hard drive with image saved (via usb), and have the boot disk recover the hard drive image to the new hard drive.

If you use acronis Migrate Easy 7.0, you will need an external hard drive enclosure for your bare (new) hard drive, and connect it via USB, format it while your using current computer and make sure you make it a booting hard drive and you should be able to migrate the contents of the existing hard drive to the new hard drive. Since you formatted it earlier to be a bootable hard drive, you can turn off the computer, switch hard drives, and it will boot from the new one with everything from the old one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYqn64rdcDo

The above is helpful for the Migrate Easy method.

The migrate method seems easier, faster, and you don't need an external hard drive with an enclosure and specific size. The acronis TIH 2009 route is safer but longer and requires an external hard drive with an enclosure and specific size.

 

If you have vista just use abr to backup activation in vista. then wipe the disk, i do not bother with the default partition they make. Start afresh with new installation of vista if tahts what you have.

 

Thanks for the responses. All of my personal data has already been backed up to an external HDD. All I really want to do is put a new HDD in and have it work. From what I understand, I will need to get Vista and the appropriate boot files on the new HDD. It would seem as though Migrate Easy would be the path to take?

 

Migrate Easy pretty much clones your hard drive....... the easiest, but you need an external HD enclosure so you can hook it up via USB to your laptop and follow that YouTube video. Then replace the hard drives when done.

 

Alright, I think I'm going to do something else instead since I'll be getting Windows 7.

I'm by no means a PC whiz, but tell me if this makes sense. Once I get W7, I'll pick up a new HDD, take out my old and put in my new. At this point, when I boot up the computer, what will happen? Can I insert my Windows 7 disc at this point and run the install?

 

When you boot your pc with the new HDD (with nothing on it), make sure you get into your bios and change the boot order to the optical drive first (most computers, you get into bios by constantly tapping F2 as soon as you hit the power button). It should be easy to navigate bios and change the boot order. Make sure when you exit, you save changes made and open the optical drive and place the Windows 7 disc in. When you restart the computer, it will boot from the Windows 7 disc and prompt you to format the hard drive and install it (pretty much just keep clicking next).

When you get done fully installing windows seven, yo may want to go into bios one last time and change the boot order back to Hard drive first.

Be aware though, you may need newer drivers to keep some of the devices on your computer running correctly. You can usually get these at their website (dell.com, hp.com, etc..)

 

Great, thanks for all your help Buckits. Now I just have to find an affordable HDD