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- #21
Does the laptop needs to be shut down so that the cloning process takes place w/o any files continually changing? If that's the case, it sounds like I'll need to utilize a second PC.
Cloning a hdd
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Shouldn't be necessary - though you can create a CD boot disk and run the whole show from that.
Time READ...
DiscWizard | Seagate
and...
How can I copy / transfer all the data from my old boot drive to my new Seagate drive?
cheers,
george.
- Thread starter
- #23
Yeah, I was reading that saw the first thing:
Physically install the new drive as a secondary drive in your system.
This is great for a desk top but not good for a laptop! I'll figure out a way to add the new drive to the laptop as an USB drive.
Physically install the new drive as a secondary drive in your system.
This is great for a desk top but not good for a laptop! I'll figure out a way to add the new drive to the laptop as an USB drive.
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You can buy a USB case that has IDE (if you have old drives) or SATA for ~$10 and that will take care of plugging it into your laptop - that's what I used to upgrade. Then I put the old drive into the case and it's a tiny USB powered USB drive for moving data around etc.
You can find cheap enclosures at places like newegg:
Newegg.com - External Enclosures, External Hard Drive Enclosures
cheers,
george.
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- #25
Copy that, on my way to Newegg to order one. Thanks for holding my hand!
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- #26
Ok guys, got my external hdd enclosure so I'm getting closer. Upon plugging it into the USB port, the laptop won't assign it a drive letter until I partition it.
This is a 300G SATA hdd.
So, I went to Disk Management and found my unassigned new hdd. Right click, partition new drive.
I have a choice of primary or secondary partition: I'm guessing that I want Primary?
Next screen is asking me partition size and my choices are plenty. It says that maximum partition size can be 305,243 MB.
What is the typical partition size that you suggest?
Currently, my C drive is NTFS, Basic and only has 283mb left!
This is a 300G SATA hdd.
So, I went to Disk Management and found my unassigned new hdd. Right click, partition new drive.
I have a choice of primary or secondary partition: I'm guessing that I want Primary?
Next screen is asking me partition size and my choices are plenty. It says that maximum partition size can be 305,243 MB.
What is the typical partition size that you suggest?
Currently, my C drive is NTFS, Basic and only has 283mb left!
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Primary. Maximum partition size (why make it any smaller?).
Just back from a week of camping... so ready for more of your 'special' questions
cheers,
george.
Just back from a week of camping... so ready for more of your 'special' questions
cheers,
george.
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- #29
Ok, installed and followed the DiscWizard's instructions on cloning a hdd. I followed the "clone disc" (copy partition from one drive to another and make bootable) , Automatic mode, from Disc 1 (74gig) to Disc 2 (300gig). Done.
When I click on my new "D" drive (still connected via USB), I see a file called "system volume information (75gig)" and can't open it. Ok, no problem.
Pull out the old drive, install the new drive and try to boot up but NADA. System doesn't recognize it as a valid drive.
What's next? What did I do wrong?
When I click on my new "D" drive (still connected via USB), I see a file called "system volume information (75gig)" and can't open it. Ok, no problem.
Pull out the old drive, install the new drive and try to boot up but NADA. System doesn't recognize it as a valid drive.
What's next? What did I do wrong?
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Well, not sure what you did wrong, but it should have copied all the files, i.e. you should see a whole bunch of folders, basically it should look the same as your original drive's contents.
Until it looks the same (content wise) I don't think the cloning operation was successful. Sounds more like it made some kind of backup of your original disk....
Seagate has a forum - you could document your steps and what happened there and hopefully someone will tell you what you did wrong
cheers,
george.
Until it looks the same (content wise) I don't think the cloning operation was successful. Sounds more like it made some kind of backup of your original disk....
Seagate has a forum - you could document your steps and what happened there and hopefully someone will tell you what you did wrong
cheers,
george.
FREE solution
Clonezilla booted from a cd will work over a network connection to snap an image of a selected disk drive and store it on another computer (or usb device, etc). You can then boot (multiple or just one) computer with the clonezilla cd, select write and then (after the image is transferred) re-size the copied image to fit the full capacity of the new disk.
You will need a special cross-over network cable or 2 normal network cables and a network router/switch (that does auto cross-over) to connect the 2 computers
. And obviously enough free disk space to store the drive image 
. If you have a combined modem/wireless/router at home you'll probably find 4 network sockets on the back of it, just plug the computers into it and boot them with clonezilla 
.
I use this in a small network (~20 PCs) to load new computers with our standard setup. I don't use a cd; clonezilla also works via the Pre eXecution Environment (PXE) loader over the network, but that's overkill (and a bit too much of a learning curve
) for a single cloning.
Clonzilla is freeware
- just do a web search, download and burn it.
Boot it and select what you want to do (read or write an image) from the list on screen. The only difficult thing is the names of the disk drives, they obviously all can't be drive C: so clonezilla uses unix volume names such as hd0, hd1, hd2 or sd0, sd1, etc.
bye.
Clonezilla booted from a cd will work over a network connection to snap an image of a selected disk drive and store it on another computer (or usb device, etc). You can then boot (multiple or just one) computer with the clonezilla cd, select write and then (after the image is transferred) re-size the copied image to fit the full capacity of the new disk.
You will need a special cross-over network cable or 2 normal network cables and a network router/switch (that does auto cross-over) to connect the 2 computers
. And obviously enough free disk space to store the drive image . If you have a combined modem/wireless/router at home you'll probably find 4 network sockets on the back of it, just plug the computers into it and boot them with clonezilla .I use this in a small network (~20 PCs) to load new computers with our standard setup. I don't use a cd; clonezilla also works via the Pre eXecution Environment (PXE) loader over the network, but that's overkill (and a bit too much of a learning curve
) for a single cloning.Clonzilla is freeware
- just do a web search, download and burn it.Boot it and select what you want to do (read or write an image) from the list on screen. The only difficult thing is the names of the disk drives, they obviously all can't be drive C: so clonezilla uses unix volume names such as hd0, hd1, hd2 or sd0, sd1, etc.
bye.