New Laptop Hard Drive
My girlfriend has a slightly old Dell laptop (I don't have specifics but I can get them) and is running out of space on her smallish hard drive. She's also complained of general poor performance. I explained that getting a larger, freshly formatted hard drive and more RAM is probably the cheapest way to upgrade and address those problems.
Unfortunately, she's unsure if she still has her Windows XP installation discs. So the problem is how to transfer all of her data from the smaller hard drive onto a new, larger one, and getting the OS onto the new HD.
Ideally she will locate her installation cds (and key), but barring that, what's the best way to go about transferring all the data onto a new hard drive? Is there any way faster than USB?
I've suggested contacting Dell to see if they'll give her replacement cds cheaply but I'm not confident they'll have a record of the sale or that they will be able to help, but I'd love to be wrong.
Has anyone dealt with a similar problem here?
Thanks in advance.
MrDeVil909: I feel it necessary to point out that there are drug resistant strains of most STDs. Especially in developing nations.
Funkenpants: Great. Yet another area in which we're losing our lead to foreigners.
Two things I've done in this case. First, you can make a ghost image (using norton ghost) of the system and put the new drive in and ghost it. Technically, I didn't do the ghosting so unfortunately I can't tell you how to do it.
The other way to do this is borrow cds from someone else. It is likely that any dell XP cd will work. You can download drivers online.
Getting killed, though? In a way that you don't like? Suck it up, Gertrude.
You can buy a USB to IDE/SATA adapter and use that in concert with a utility like Casper to clone the old drive to a new one. Borrowing the CDs from someone else will likely not work unless they are Dell CDs. I've tried using Dell keys with generic XP CDs before and they often don't work. If necessary, she can order a set from Dell for about $30 (last time I checked anyway.) You could do the clone directly on the laptop (install the cloning utility on the old drive and put the new one on the adapter for cloning) or you could use the adapter to image clone the drive on another system.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca
I've had Dell replace XP CDs for free before, so they might now. Clean install FTW imho.
Quote:
- Legion, taking "keeping it in the family" to a whole new level.
Xbox Live: Fedaykin98
They will replace them for free if the laptop is under warranty (had to do that with mine) but not if they're out of warranty.
"We're taught from a young age how to dodge rock hard objects moving at incredible rates of speed while simultaneously beating folks half to death with sticks. We do this for fun." -kung fu grip
http://blog.digital-lifeline.ca