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I'm going to replace the 160GB SATA hard drive on my DELL laptop with a 320GB or a 500GB and I want to just clone the internal drive and then restore it when I install the new drive into the laptop.

I'm looking for suggestions on software to do the drive image or clone or ghost image, whatever you call it. I'd prefer Freeware or something inexpensive.

I bought 2 external 500GB 2.5" drives. One is a Western Digital that I gave to a friend as a gift-she has helped me out a lot. The other is a Simpletech. I didn't think to look at the software on the WD before I gave it to her. Someone mentioned on another board that it comes with a program. The Simpletech drive came with a program Acronis Total Media Backup, but I can't tell if it can make a clone drive.

If course, I could just install the new drive into the laptop and do a fresh Vista install with the disc that came with the laptop from DEll and that's an option.

If you about this stuff, I'd appreciate your input.

Unless you are familiar with Rsync, you might want to try HDClone from Miray. It is freeware.

http://www.miray.de/home/index.html

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm? ... 418&page=2

It is funny this should come up as I just did this last weekend on my HP laptop. I cloned the 120 gb hd to a new 320 gb (both sata)
I have done this sucessfully on a desktop before but a laptop is a little different. I studied many different cloning software programs and went with Acronis (which is also what I used in the past on the desktop) http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/do ... trueimage/
You will need an external enclosure for the new harddrive for the cloning process and then when you switch drives you can put the old drive in the enclosure and you have a external hardrive to use as you wish-however I would wait until you are sure everything is working as it should before erasing and formating the old drive.
Make sure you have all licensing information for any licensed software prior to cloning -- just in case.
With Acronis True Image 2009 you get a fully funtional 15 day trial. so make sure you have everything you need before you dl the program as your 15 days starts from the moment you dl it. DL the pdf users manual and read up on it ahead of time...it is pretty user friendly actually and the cloning process went rather quickly and without a hitch.
Good Luck Stogie
By the way my licensed programs cloned over just fine and all worked perfectly.

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

Thank you both for your information.

I ordered a USB enclosure for a 2.5" drive off ebay and I have that already so I can clone the new internal.

I've been looking for a good deal on a 500GB or 320GB drive to put into the laptop. I should get one in the next few days. Once I clone the drive I'll put the original HD away and maybe put it back into the laptop when I'm done using it and ready for a new laptop.

Surprisingly, I got a WD 500GB Passport external for $110 and a Simpletech external 500GB for $90. I keep missing the low, low deals on the internals because you really need to watch ebay auctions like a hawk to get the smokin' deals. I can get a 320GB for around $70 and a 500GB for $105-$110 which is weird because it's about what I paid for the externals.

I'm wearing down and I just want to get something so I can get this over with.

Hopefully you two guys will see this and know what I need to do.

I got a 320GB WD Scorpio Blue off ebay. It's an OEM drive. I put it in an external enclosure and it's being recognized, but it doesn't show up in MY Computer, it would be drive F:. So I guess it needs to be partitioned and formatted. I used to know how to do this, but with Vista I don't know where to look. I looked at WD's web site and it doesn't seem to be much help.

Once I get it formatted I was going to use HDclone to clone the internal drive. Thanks in advance for any help.

Ok, I went to the internet to find out and I needed to right click on the drive to initialize it before it could be formatted. It's formatting. Next I'll try cloning it. Hope it works ok.

Ok, the drive is initialized, formatted and I am using DriveimageXML right now to try to clone it, I don't know if it's going to work. I've tried several other programs and none of them would work. It's going very slowly. Probably will take a couple of hours and it's 4 oclock in the morning. I'm going to bed. Hopefully when I get up it'll be done and I can swap the drives out.

In term of HDD cloning, the two leaders are Norton Ghost and Acronis, but they are not free.
I am very happy with Ghost for its simplicity.
Many others use and like Acronis as well but I never use it though.

Well this odyssey is over. I opened the laptop and it uses a proprietary connector. It may need some sort of special SATA cable.

The Toshiba drive that came with the laptop will stay and the 320GB will simply be an external. The laptop actually has a compartment for a second HD, but it requires the proprietary edge connector too.

Maybe the internal drive in your laptop uses an IDE drive and not a SATA drive??? Maybe that is why the connectors are different?

and there ARE Sata to IDE converters

I double checked and the internal drive is definitely SATA.

http://www.techexcess.net/dell-p-n-0rm066-toshiba-mk1646gsx-160gb-5400rpm-8mb-sata-300-2-5-9-5mm-laptop-hdd-hdd2d92.aspx

Someone on another board suggested that the connector on the drive is an adapter and it might be able to be removed. Seems odd to me. If this is the case then I might be able to get another adapter, then I could install the WD drive directly into the second drive bay. Then I'd have 150GB and 300GB. I can't imagine needing more than that since I don't do video DJing.

I imagine I could buy a second drive from Dell with the right connector, but I bet I would pay through the nose. The 320GB WD drive from ebay was only $67 including shipping. I bet it would be double that from Dell, maybe more. Maybe I should call them? I could always give my daughter the 320GB for a backup drive for her laptop.

Ok, just found out from someone on Our DJ Talk that the connector is removable and I can pull it off the Toshiba drive and put it on the WD once I clone it. I'll let you know what happens.

Well I tried a bunch of different programs and finally gave up and downloaded Acronis. It's running right now. If it clones successfully I should have it installed within a few minutes after that. We shall see.

Stogie, how did the cloning go?

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

Hey thanks for following up RLC. Acronis worked great. Seems better than everything else I tried so I'm just going to buy it. It also has partitioning which I want. So it is a good overall solution IMO.