I have a Dell E1505 laptop. It has a 120GB hard drive. I want to replace the hard drive with something larger and faster. (Boot time from a cold computer to happily reading the SDMB can easily exceed ten minutes!)
I have ordered an Hitatchi 320GB TravelStar that has been well reviewed and looks like it will do perfectly. I got this same drive for my daughter’s Toshiba laptop and it has been working great. I also ordered this inexpensive SATA drive enclosure.
Anyway, the Dell (unlike the Toshiba) did not come with any OS media. Instead, there is a back up partition on the hard drive. I know how to remove the OEM drive and install the new drive. I assume that installing the OEM drive to the external enclosure should be similarly simple.
How can I restore the OS from the now external OEM drive to the new internal drive? I want to do a clean install of the OS and necessary drivers, migrate my data from the OEM drive to the new internal drive, then reformat the OEM drive as a handy portable drive. I may even network the drive and make it available to other devices on the network.
TEN MINUTES?!!?? What, does it spin at 33 1/3 rpm or something?
I will vouch for those Hitachi TravelStars. I had a pair of 60 giggers in my old WallStreet and it was wonderfully zippy. Those were ATA (sorry PATA, I guess I should say), of course.
As far as migration including bootability & all, I don’t know how to do it for free but if you’re in the market anyhow for good backup software, EMC’s Retrospect makes bootable backups (“Duplicates”). It’s a great strategy for backing up; if your drive dies, you grab a new empty drive, boot from the backup, run a Duplicate from the backup to the new empty, then boot from THAT and you’re done, fully restored.
Backup files are strange beasts in some cases and may give you errors if they are set to work with a specific drive volume size and the new drive is larger.
If the backup partition has self executing install files you can probably just copy them to a largish thumb drive. Cloning the new drive off the old one is also a possibility if the clone software is is smart enough not to simply image the old drive on the new one without making allowances for size differences. If you can get it to clone and drag the setup partition along you can initiate a clean install from the partition.
Clone software is often available from the drive manufs website.
Another option is simply to save your data then using the old drive’s existing partition files re-image the Dell to a new OS install so it’s all fresh and speedy, then clone the drive to the new larger unit. This gives you a new drive with a fresh OS install.
There is a 10 day trial on the site www.acronis.com.
Install acronis, plug the new drive in via the usb external, run the drive clone tool to the new drive. Its pretty simple to follow.
This is timely. I’ve tried twice in the last week to clone my laptop’s hard drive with Apricorn EZ Clone, but it keeps the exact size of the old drive. So I wind up with a new hard drive with 110 GB of usable space and 350 GB unavailable. You are supposed to be able to manually resize the partition, but it won’t let me; and when you run it on the default “proportionally resize drive” option it still results in a 110GB drive. Assholes. I’ll try Acronis.
I take it for the individual user, True Image Home would be the product to go for? Is it well worth the $50 it is being sold at?
If so, I am about to buy a terabyte external hard drive and was wondering if there were any suggestions/hints about partitioning or whatever that will ensure my backing up will run more smoothly?
I’d look into contacting Dell and asking for an OS CD; they should make it available to you for a nominal fee at worst, and possibly free.
Also, a 10-minute boot would indicate that you’re running a lot of stuff at startup time, and possibly also that your drive is overdue for a defragmentation. Checking that you’re not running unnecessary programs at startup using the msconfig utility can speed up boots quite significantly.
Seconding this. Everyone else seemed to suggest capturing an image of the old hard drive and putting it on the new one. But that won’t give you a clean install of the OS, as you said you wanted. You can get the drivers from the Dell website, but not the OS.
Thanks. Sounds like I just need to get a restore CD from Dell. That seems easier than drying to do anything with the restore partition on the OEM drive. That is also how I have done every other system restore and reformat on other computers that I have. This is the only one that didn’t come with any media.
I just got off the phone with Dell and, after going through three departments, ended up with someone willing to sell me three CDs for $45.43. While not horribly expensive, that is more than I think I ought to pay for something I have already paid for. The last guy I spoke to said that these CDs should have shipped with the system. I am going to search harder to find them. I bought the computer on May 30, 2007. Anyone know if Dells of that vintage came with installation CDs?
I’ve bought Dell systems a few times and received CDs every time. And in my experience what they provided was not a restore CD that would recreate the factory configuration, but one CD with the Windows operating system, another with the various drivers and diagnostics software and additional ones for any system-specific hardware.
That sounds like what the guy was trying to sell me for $45. He said that I should have received them with the system when I bought it. I’ll look more carefully.
Well, howzaboutdat? The Dell did come with software CDs and DVDs. Duh. They don’t seem to be as user friendly as other companies’ restore CDs, but I think I can make it work.
Thanks to all for your help. If there’s anything I can do to help y’all, let me know.
I recommend that after using the OEM Windows CD to install Windows 2000/XP/Vista/whatever, you install the latest service pack ASAP. Also, note that the that the driver disc will have the drivers as of the date of manufacture. If you go to the Dell website, you can download up-to-date drivers.
I have used Hitachi OEM for desktop computer and they DO have the manuals online. They do NOT make it easy to find them. So I would also go to their website and plan to spend about an hour looking for it.
I’m sure you’re right. I have restored computers from Gateway and Toshiba and their system restore disks were one disk affairs. All I had to do was boot from the CD and then forget it. Come back a few hours later and it’s like it’s fresh out of the box. The trade off, as you point out, is that all the crapware will be reinstalled, too. The Dell way is probably better.