replacing laptop drives

[Toble]

The hard drive on my Dell X300 laptop is rather full, and I'm looking at replacing it sooner or later...
So, whats the best way of copying all the data off the drive onto a new one? Or, as I suspect, will I need to install everything afresh?

As a short term fix, whats the best, safest, and free-est way of merging the C: and D: partitions to make one massive (!) 40gb one?

 

[wmrcomputers]

Merging partitions can be a nightmare and I personally wouldn't even try.

Your suspicion is right too, there's no easy was but to re-install everything. When you install progs they write information into the registry. If you try to just copy over program folders, many of the programs wont run right anyway.

In short, burn off your documents etc to some blank CD's or DVD's, pop in a new drive or re-partition the old one as one drive only, and have fun setting it all up again from scratch.

If you have no writer to back up data, then there are orther ways so just ask me.

Hope this helps mate
Wayne

 

[Toble]

Merging partitions can be a nightmare and I personally wouldn't even try.
Your suspicion is right too, there's no easy was but to re-install everything. When you install progs they write information into the registry. If you try to just copy over program folders, many of the programs wont run right anyway.
In short, burn off your documents etc to some blank CD's or DVD's, pop in a new drive or re-partition the old one as one drive only, and have fun setting it all up again from scratch.

Curses. On the upside, I have another identical laptop I can copy the docs to while I break this one...

 

[Sofa]

Ghost image.

 

[tek-monkey]

I prefer to reinstall usually, machines always tend to respond faster when running clean. If it was me, I'd buy one of these to put the old drive in. Install the new one from fresh, whack this in when finished and copy the data back. Afterwards you have a 40Gb portable drive too.

EDIT: Hang on, you replacing the HD or the whole laptop?

 

[db]

for me, half the fun of buying a new system drive is reinstalling windows from scratch, setting all my app's up the way i like them, etc.. gets rid of all the crap i've inevitably accumulated over the years which i never use and which just clogs up the system

just chuck your old drive in a usb caddie, bang your new system drive in the laptop, revel in the joy that is a fresh windows installation, then pull all your files over from the old drive..

if you really want to keep your existing boot volume, then as sofa says Ghost is the way forward..

 

[wmrcomputers]

Agreed here about USB caddy. Only problem using something such as Ghost, remember you're keepinbg everything!!... viruses, program errors from corrupt or missing files, unwanted crap etc.

Defo go for a full new windows installation as others have said. That way you're sure to be up and running like new again.

 

[Toble]

I'll re-install eventually, but for now i'm swapping machines.
I'd forgotten that laptop2 has a bigger HD, more memory, and a faster processor.
And i've been using it as a DVD player! D'oh!

 

[Toble]

Argh. Having just removed The Movies, Photoshop and Flash (which should free up 3gb), and running disk cleanup, I find I'm 86mb better off.

What the hell is eating my disk?

 

[Wookie]

Slack space? Bad sectors? Incomplete uninstallations? Rabbits? Badly written [ap|pre]pending viruses? Tiny little metal-eating insects, so tiny you can't see them?

 

[Toble]

I think its the insects.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Is your movie burning software leaving temporary images lying around after you've burnt to disc?
Try doing a file search for all files and specify files of a size greater than say 500Mb. You should see what is swallowing it up then hopefully.

Personally I still think it's less of a headache just to re-install everything from scratch than it is trying to iron out the kinks, especially if you've got everything you need backed up.

 

[Toble]

I don't burn movies on that (this) machine, or indeed any of my machines.
I think i'm going to have to re-format and go to laptop 2.

 

[wmrcomputers]

At least you'll know you will defimnately re-gain your hdd space that way.
All the best with it

 

[Toble]

Update...
The new drive is in. The old drive is hanging out of the side refusing to be formatted, and the net connection is on fire due to having to download a bucket load of drivers that I can't find on any disks lying around.

Never again.

 

[shoes]

Burn the drivers to CD and keep them safe - its saved me the ballache of search and download lots of times.

 

[wmrcomputers]

I have a multi driver disc containing about 100,000 drivers. It rarely fails to support anything.

As for the other drive you cant format, have you tried deleting the partition and re-creating it??
You could have just paid me £20 to save yourself the headache you know

 

[Toble]

As for the other drive you cant format, have you tried deleting the partition and re-creating it??
You could have just paid me £20 to save yourself the headache you know

It was claiming that some files were in use on it. I had to format it on a different machine in the end.

All is well now.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Glad you're sorted