Clone HD/swap out - CF-29

I'm going to swap out the 80gb in my CF-29 for a 320gb. I have a spare 40gb HD and will get a USB-to-HD cable so that I can clone my present (80gb) onto it. This is a brand "new" (to me) basically empty computer - I just bought it last week. Nothing on it but the OS, Win XP.

This is the first time I've ever done anything like this.

I've watched the HD swap videos and that part doesn't bother me. WHat bothers me is all the "it didn't work for me" stories that I read regarding Acronis, which many say is completely effortless, and others say they can't make work.

Now: I am assuming I load Acronis onto my present HD (80gb), plug in the USB/ISE cable to the 40gb HD and then supposedly I'll find a "clone" button, which will transfer an image of the OS with drivers intact over to the 40gb drive, which will be used as a spare.

I'll then swap in the new 320gb drive, and then somehow put the data back onto the new drive. Does Acronis make this all pretty easy?

Am I making it harder than it needs to be? Can it be done in a simpler way?

Any help would be appreciated and no information is too simple or too obvious to be useful to me.

Thanks.

 

And, just to keep from assuming anything, is it even necessary to move up to a 320gb HD if all I want to do is run DeLorme Topo 9, iTunes, one simple old game, and minimal music and photo storage (I use the cloud and an accessory HD for a lot of that.) I may be fine where I'm at...?

 

As to your second post, that's up to you. I only have a 120 in mine, and it serves me well....but I"m bout to move up to a 250, cause I have it laying around, and then I"ll be able to keep ALL my digital stuff in one place.


Correct me if I"m wrong fella's:
you *can* mirror your boot drive with the windows disk management.
you have to manually copy over a few boot files (ntloader, etc....I forget exactly) from the source to the target (backup) drive
and then you can swap them and boot.

Then again, this is an excellent opportunity to reload everything and tweak it just right. I like to reload my OS once per year. It just keeps thing running smoothly.

 

Why not clone it directly to the 320 drive, then clone it again to the 40 spare drive?
Or my first choice would be to make a dvd/cd restore set from Acronis. The dvd's or cd's are bootable and will restore the original drive to any size new drive in about 15 or 20 minutes.

 

I had a few problems with Acronis until I did a little searching on the web and discovered, at least for me, that the trick is to have the target drive in the laptop. So...
1. Target drive (the new one) in laptop.
2. Source drive (the old one) in an external drive housing or usb adapter.
3. Boot the laptop with the Acronis boot disk you have made.
4. Follow the instructions.
Works for me every time.
CAP

 

The 40gb is set up to accept the USB/ISE cable. I guess to read above, I would put Acronis on a separate disk? So load a DVD and put Acronis onto that? I'm not sure how to do that. I think the thing to do is just tear in and try - it's not really as though I can break anything - the worst I'll have to do is erase everything and start over.

 

No, one of the features you'll have once you install Acronis (Some versions don't even require the install; you can do it from a pre-launch menu like when you put a Windows disc in) is to create a bootable CDROM or DVD disc. Once you boot from said disc, it works pretty much the same as a Norton Ghost disc; you tell it which hard drive is the source, which drive is destination, and click start.

Sometimes it will have issues creating the bootloader and FAT table correctly if your destination drive is on a USB adapter; that is what Cap'n is talking about. Just put the new drive IN your laptop & the old one on a USB adapter and you'll be fine; make sure you verify against HD Model# to know which drive is which when you choose.

mnem
Hard. Driving.

 

What he said. I assumed you had taken a look at Acronis so I was not clear enough about the boot disk. Acronis will burn a boot disk for you, you just follow the instructions. You then boot the computer from the disk, Windows will not open. Then just follow the instructions on the Acronis screen.
CAP

 

Many thanks. As soon as my restore/driver disks get here I'll do this thang. I appreciate your help.

 

you didn't buy one of them driver disk did you or was it a three Recovery Disk set.

 

Ebay's finest...guaranteed to be round!

No, I got the proper 3 disk set.

 

Cool...I just hate to see someone throw good money on them trash driver disk

 

I did buy a set for CF-28 when I first got it, but downloading everything you need when you are on a speed close to dial up sucks. I have DSL now and it's a LOT better.