Upgrading to Larger Hard Drive

[BobH]

My hard drive is filling up. 160 GB is a lot smaller than it used to be.

I just ordered a new 500GB Hitachi that spins at 7200 rpm for my HP 530 laptop computer. The drive should be here early next week and I thought I'd use the time to search for and plan the best possible migration strategy. You folks are the first I thought of to ask.

Installing the new HDD is a piece of cake. I've done this before. Most recently I went through it when I installed a larger drive on my wife's Dell Inspiron laptop. In that case, I wanted to preserve the installed WinXP Home Media Edition OS because I didn't have the installation CD. After struggling for days, I was unsuccessful. I used Acronis, but I had many problems and ultimately my daughter's boyfriend got it to work. I don't know what he did. I can't even remember what the specific problem was (but I think it had something to do with a missing Master Boot Record).

How would you proceed to accomplish this transition? Both the new and old drives only connect internally; so some intermediate step to offload data to media that can be transferred will be necessary. I have Acronis software and a WD Passport portable HDD of sufficient capacity that I can use. I would appreciated guidance, suggestions, trips to avoid, etc.

TIA

[BobArch2]

Microsoft has an excellent tool called Windows Easy Transfer that can be used to transfer data files to various types of media. I have used it to transfer data from my wife's XP environment to her new Windows 7 environment. Couldn't have been easier. Also used it when rebuilding a corrupt Vista environment. Just do a Google search for "Windows Easy Transfer" for mucho articles.

[StuartR]

I am surprised that you had difficulty doing this with Acronis TrueImage, I have used this product to do exactly the job you describe and it worked flawlessly.

What version of TruImage do you have?

[Just Plain Fred]

My hard drive is filling up. 160 GB is a lot smaller than it used to be.
How would you proceed to accomplish this transition? I would appreciated guidance, suggestions, trips to avoid, etc.

BobH,
Hello.... you mentioned that you have Acronis True Image ... That said these are the steps that i would (and have done several times)
1. Connect the "new HD " to your (extra) internal port.
2. "boot er up" and either run TI from recovery disk , Recovery manager , or boot into Windows and run TI. Select "tools" and click on "add hard drive" click through the various screens ....Let TI do its thing.
3. Next (when finished ) open tools again and Find "clone HD" ... once again click through the screens, choosing whatever options (source HD , Target HD etc.) along the way and TI will adjust for the new size HD ..."let er rip" when finished shut down and swap out the old drive and replace with the new.... reboot .... done...."piece of cake" Regards Fred

PS: have done this with TI v- 11 , 2010 v-7046 (don't know what TI you have?)

[BobH]

Thanks to all who responded.

PS: have done this with TI v- 11 , 2010 v-7046 (don't know what TI you have?)

The Acronis TI that have is called Home Edition. I could not find a version number anywhere (in fact there is no "about Acronis TI" in the help menu; so much for following conventions, I guess).

Fred - You mentioned an extra internal slot for the hard drive. If there is such on this laptop I couldn't find it. I could see doing that on a desktop with its multiple disk capabilities, but I don't know how to do such a thing on the laptop. The closest I can come is to connect an external USB portable drive of sufficient capacity; however, I don't think the Acronis software for copying and cloning takes into account the intermediate positioning of files on media not immediately available to the bus (or, at least, I've not got the secret decoder ring-nor do I have any Ovaltine, actually )

The last time I followed the steps of attaching a USB external drive and cloning the old HD in 2 steps instead of one, I encountered the missing boot record problem cited in my original post. If anyone has actually cloned their HD using an external drive and a 2-step approach successfully, I would very much like to hear how they did it. I've lived to be 68 years old and, thus, have been reasonably successful at following directions most of my life - even sometimes when the directions were bad; so I am open suggestions (well, reasonable ones, anyway ).

[jonwallace]

This post over there a bit details the stuff I did to replace my Hard Drive and recover from the problem I had (caused by a pesky recovery partition).

I used Maxblast which was downloadable from Maxtor, but I see that Seagate/Maxtor have a product called DiscWizard. I can't see whether this requires a Seagate/Maxtor disc to be installed from just having a cursory glance at the website. I should point out that it didn't seem to care that my old drive was a Maxtor and the new one a Samsung...

Good luck...

[Just Plain Fred]

Thanks to all who responded.

PS: have done this with TI v- 11 , 2010 v-7046 (don't know what TI you have?)

The closest I can come is to connect an external USB portable drive of sufficient capacity; however, I don't think the Acronis software for copying and cloning takes into account the intermediate positioning of files on media not immediately available to the bus (or, at least, I've not got the secret decoder ring-nor do I have any Ovaltine, actually )

The last time I followed the steps of attaching a USB external drive and cloning the old HD in 2 steps instead of one, I encountered the missing boot record problem cited in my original post. suggestions (well, reasonable ones, anyway ).

BobH,
Hello.... Ok to find what version on the extreme right hand of the Acronis there is a drop down arrow click it and select about.
If you don't have any internal ports available... unless you have a second PC i don't see any way other than the USB route.you would have to "clone" your present drive, to the USB port (one step) you would have nothing to loose if it doesn't work as you would still have your old drive and OS intact. When finished just swap them out a make sure it will boot .... it will because the clone is a Mirror of you present OS...just a bit larger. Regards Fred

[BobH]

Thanks, Fred!

I found the pull down menu and the 'about' button. When I display it, I find Acronis True Image Home Edition 2010 and a build number (6053). There is no version number as I would expect to find.

I wonder if I can clone to the USB drive, remove the old drive, install the new drive, and boot from the USB drive then clone from it to the internal hard drive? Hmmm! As you say, I'll still have the old HD intact.

Thanks again.

[Just Plain Fred]

Thanks, Fred!

I found the pull down menu and the 'about' button. When I display it, I find Acronis True Image Home Edition 2010 and a build number (6053). There is no version number as I would expect to find.

I wonder if I can clone to the USB drive, remove the old drive, install the new drive, and boot from the USB drive then clone from it to the internal hard drive? Hmmm! As you say, I'll still have the old HD intact.

Thanks again.

Bob,
The 6053 is the build number, and your one "build \ version " behind . The newest version "7046". I am not sure .. but would think it would not make too much difference as far as "cloning" is concerned. I personally would up date to the new build and then do the "clone" All that you need to do is visit the Acronis Web Site and log in ( your E mail + password)and download the new update , You can do this as per Acronis over the old.. I did this and did not encounter any problems . The clone should be no problem , just follow the "screens" (for the re sizing HD etc. ) Regards fred

[BobH]

I'll give that a try. Thanks again.

[BobH]

My new HDD arrived in the mail over the weekend. I went through the steps of doing a clone of the old drive to the WD Passport portable HDD, removing the old HDD, installing the new HDD, placing the clone from the Passport onto the new HDD.

ALL WENT VERY WELL WITH ACRONIS THIS TIME! (caps to show my surprise)

There was not a single flutter, flap, or fizzle. Either I did something differently or there were other variables the last time I did this. (Either is possible because I've slept more than twice since that event, and at my age sleep erases recall.)

I have one remaining issue that I've not found resolution for, yet I know that Acronis has the functionality. When I cloned the old HDD, I wound up with a partition the size of the old HDD. I can't even see the additional 340GB of space on the new HDD using File Explorer. Even the little pie chart that shows available disk space only shows what was available before I installed the new HDD. Searching Help in Acronis TI has been fruitless. I could find nothing on their website either. Both of these problems are due to my lacking the vocabulary to find the topic, I'm certain.

I did not create any extra partitions on the new HDD. In fact, I didn't even format it because the Acronis process said that the cloning steps would take care of that.

Any advice or pointers to wiki or the appropriate Help in Acronis would be greatly appreciated.

[StuartR]

The additional space on the new hard drive is not visible in File Explorer because it hasn't been formatted yet.

You have three choices of how to use that space.

1. Run disk management and create a new partition using the empty space, format it and mount it with a new drive letter
2. Use a partition management product to expand your existing C partition to add the extra space
3. Run Acronis again and find the magic incantation which will make it create a new C drive that uses all the available space on the disk

When you have decided which of these sounds good to you we can give you detailed instructions.

[BobH]

Thanks, Stuart!

Let's see if I'm smart enough to deal with these:

The additional space on the new hard drive is not visible in File Explorer because it hasn't been formatted yet.

You have three choices of how to use that space.

1. Run disk management and create a new partition using the empty space, format it and mount it with a new drive letter

Acronis would not let me create a new partition. I think they have a different product for that (for more $).

[*]Use a partition management product to expand your existing C partition to add the extra space

I found I had a copy of Paragon Partition Manager and used that to create another partition then took most of that space and added it to the C:\ partition that Acronis created. This leaves me with about 70GB tied up in a partition I don't want and can't seem to rid myself of.

[*]Run Acronis again and find the magic incantation which will make it create a new C drive that uses all the available space on the disk[/list]
When you have decided which of these sounds good to you we can give you detailed instructions.

It was the magic incantation that I couldn't find that got me into this mess in the first place, Ollie!

[StuartR]

Sounds like you have now solved your problem.

For future reference, my suggestion in point 1 was that you use the disk management utility that is part of windows. You can do this by running DISKMGMT.MSC, or by right clicking on (My) Computer, choosing manage, and then selecting disk management in the left pane. This would have allowed you to create a new partition and format it - without needing any third party software - but it would NOT have been part of your C drive, it would get a new drive letter.

[BobH]

Thank you, again, Stuart!

I hope my journey will be instructive for someone in the future facing the same or similar task.