Cloning notebook hard drive via USB

[sonick]

Okay, so here's what I have:

- Old Laptop Hard Drive
- New Laptop Hard Drive
- Laptop
- 2.5" USB External Enclosure.

I need to find a way to clone/ghost the old drive onto the new one so that I can simply install the new drive into the laptop and have it boot up windows as it would normally. The main concern is with the system/boot files.

Is this possible? A nerd friend says since Symantec Ghost runs in DOS, and there aren't USB drivers in DOS, it may or may not work.

I can either have the old drive in the laptop and clone it to the new drive in the enclosure then swap them, or stick the new drive into the laptop first, and do it in reverse.

What about Acronis True Image: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/co...trueimage.html

Thanks

 

[migo]

I used a free program called driveimage XML (google it). Here's, though I had a 3.5" external hdd, here's wot I did:

imaged old laptop hdd onto 3.5" external
copied image onto new laptop hdd using an enclosure


I'm pretty sure the prog has an option to image and transfer immediately...check it out though, it's an easy program.

 

[j]

If Driveimage XML works, then do that.

I've looked into it using Ghost, and there are ways to do it involving boot disks, USB drivers, etc., but I think the quickest way would be to take both drives out, get/borrow external adaptors for both (maybe return one when you're done, if you don't want to keep it), plug them both into a working computer and do it from there. They'll both be out at some point anyway, and laptops don't have floppy drives, so making all the boot disk nonsense would be a pain.

 

[sonick]

Yeah, I'd like to avoid buying/borrowing any additional stuff if possible, or go around searching for USB boot drivers.

I think migo's method might work, albiet with a few tweaks.
- Image the boot partition of old drive to the second partition of old drive.
- Restore image from 2nd partition on old drive to boot partition of new drive.

So it would also copy the master boot record and whatever else is needed to boot off the new HD, right?

Thanks

 

[ratboycom]

ive used ghost to do what you described. Ghost has drivers for USB. It will copy everything from the old drive to the new one.

 

[sonick]

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I was able to get DriveImage to work just fine in Drive-to-Drive, didn't even have to create an image first.

The new hard drive is in, and works perfectly.