need to transfer Vista to better HD

I was wondering how it would be possible, if at all possible, to transfer Vista from my crummy 5400 rpm sata 150 HD to a sata 300 seagate momentus 7200.2. My doubts come from the fact that it's a single license OEM. Any thoughts on how possible (or impossible) this is? I am of course willing to void the license on the previous hard drive and revive it on the new one.

edit: let me elaborate on one thing which might be important: it's a new laptop and the only thing on the hd atm is vista. so with that known, would there be an easier solution than connecting the hard-drives up and cloning? for instance, would i be able to install the new hard drive and boot up with the recovery disk provided by the manufacturer to get vista on the new hard drive?

 

you could clone the hdd on something like ghost.

 

Acronis True Image can copy all your data from the old drive to the new drive. You can get a free copy from seagate or maxtor called DiscWizard or MaxBlast. The free copies only work if you have at least one seagate or maxtor drive hooked up, so if you can install both drives at once (in a desktop perhaps?) then you should have no troubles since your new drive is a seagate. Its very easy and quick and your vista will work without any messing around.

 

Just go to Backup & Restore Center (in control panel) and choose "Back up Computer" to create a full restore image.

I don't think you will have a license problem from changing the HD.

 

Full computer backup certainly would do it, but it is only on Ultimate. I've heard that DriveImageXML is a free alternative, though I haven't used it myself.

 

I keep forgetting about the differences in editions.

 

I cloned my HD when I bought a new HD, everything worked fine, no problems with Vista.

 

normal, because there's actually not much differences...

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to OP: acronis true image can clone your whole HDD, it's not free though.

 

let me elaborate on one thing which might be important: it's a new laptop and the only thing on the hd atm is vista. so with that known, would there be an easier solution than connecting the hard-drives up and cloning? for instance, would i be able to install the new hard drive and boot up with the recovery disk provided by the manufacturer to get vista on the new hard drive?

 

Yes, using the recovery discs should work for this. Since you're going to install anyway, I recommend doing a clean install instead. Take a look at the "clean install guide" in my signature for more details.

If nothing else, it would be a good test of the recovery discs so you know that they work.

 

If you have to install from restore disk to new drives, Im assuming you would have to phone MS with your oem #, then they give you a new licence #, get the orev licence copy program and save new licence to a memory key so you wont have to go through the phone bs with MS and you can most likley use the anytime upgrade disk for a clean install and the new licence# should work.

 

Yes, the ABR program can allow you to skip calling Microsoft, which is why I wrote it

 

I used an Apricorn kit, which cost around $30 but comes with a housing so you can use your old drive as a portable. The cloning went perfectly, but of course it takes a long time. Unfortunately I "only" used a 160gb drive and now I have to do it again

 

There's enough difference IMO,

You must have home basic

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/editions/choose.mspx

 

i see cloning the drive as much easier than reinstlaling vista and then installing all your programs + configuring once again.

 

The second paragraph of the OP clearly states that this is a new machine and he has nothing installed on it. In light of that "new" information, I disagree.