Transferring Laptop HD Data to New Drive

[fighterpilot]

I have an aging Sony Vaio (PCG-FXA53) laptop. It has a 4200RPM 30GB HD. It gets minor use, and mainly for desktop work. However, I am afraid of a hard drive failure at some point and want to swap out the drive. I have a disk image of the drive with a clean install (with WinXP SP2 + Office + all updates) and don't want to have to do that again if I can help it.

So basically I am looking to transfer contents of this laptop HD to a new one. Is there a laptop ATA cable to SATA or IDE that I can use to transfer using my dekstop PC?

Thanks.

 

[Tarrant64]

There is software out there that will actually help you to do this. Ghost and Acronis True Image should have the capability as well. I'm looking now for some other software specifically made to do what it is you want.
There was just a review in CPU I read last night on a recommended program that was good for this. Using software can also help you if in the future you want to upgrade the laptop. It will copy over all necessary files/folders/drivers, etc., and also determine what drivers/etc. aren't needed(this being the specific software I'm looking for right now).

Otherwise...
I was thinking you'd have to reinstall windows on the new hard drive, and then deploy your custom image once that's done. A pain, I know. Probably a better way.

 

[fighterpilot]

Thanks. I've used imaging software quite a bit, but my problem this time is hardware. I just went through and cleaned up and reinstalled Windows on this 30GB drive and don't care to do that any time soon.

My issue is that I need to get the backup to another media, and this laptop only has a CD-RW slow as snot. I will try that acronis image though, and see if it supports USB devices, then I can just back it up to my USB HD.

 

[corkyg]

It's really pretty easy with Acronis True Image (10). I put the new drive in an external Firewire case, and boot using an Acronis prepared bootable CD, and simply clone the internal drive to the external.

Then I switch the drives, and all is normal. I do this every month with my lapto-p drives - and thus rotate them, always having a good spare on hand if needed. I call it system redundancy.

 

[fighterpilot]

Since I rarely mess around with laptop hardware that much, what kind of connection is there on the laptop hard drive? Is there any easy way to hook it up to SATA or USB?

I found this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812119017

But it is a little pricey at $20.

And there's this guy here that looks more reasonable at least for the few times I'll use it ($7)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812119020

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: fighterpilot
Since I rarely mess around with laptop hardware that much, what kind of connection is there on the laptop hard drive? Is there any easy way to hook it up to SATA or USB?

2.5-in HDDs all have the same array of connection pins. Each laptop uses its own caddy/tray/sled adapters. External cases are designed to fit the 2.5-in HDD's pin array - which combines data and power. They connect to the laptop via USB, Firewire. I don't know of a laptop that has an external SATA port yet - I am eagerly awaiting one.