hard drive physically damaged

niccy

the hard drive on my laptop is mortally wounded.Somehow i have inflicted physical damage to it and its time is limited.I have an external hard drive so is there a way i can transfer everything ( O.S. programs ,files ) on to it, buy a new internal hard drive and transfer it all back, in one easy action.
i dont mind buying some software to help.

thanks for any help

alanclarke

HDClone is at www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html - there are free and paid for versions. I have never used this software.

Many years ago I used Norton Ghost and it did the job but this is a paid for product. A quick look at www.froogle.co.uk it sells for about £30-£40. Mine was on Norton System Works 2002 CD and this created a bootable floppy disk which Ghost ran from, later version may run from bootable CD and looking at froogle System Works is cheaper than Norton Ghost. Check with supplier System Works has Ghost and it runs from the media you have on your computer.

When I transfered disk using Ghost it was from one internal disk to another, I've just noticed in original post you want to transfer to external drive and then to a new internal drive. I'm not sure if above will do this although the paid for versions of HDClone support USB 1.1 & 2.0. I woud think Norton Ghost would do the same.

MikeTurrall

Be careful if you try using Ghost 2003 on a recent computer, I have just managed to trash a fairly new laptop that I was trying to image for a friend. I was at the time unaware that Ghost 2003 doesn't like SATA drives and will lock them making the system unusable. I am still looking for a way to rectify the situation.

albertross_2

ghost or acronis trueimage.

if you buy a (or have at least one) seagate/maxtor drive, you can used their maxblast 5 utility (which is a badged acronis trueimage utility) free, it is available on their website.

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=MaxBlast_5&vgnextoid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

if you don't have too much data, you could back up direct to DVD.

what is wrong with the drive?

PS have used ghost 2003 on sata, not sure what the previous posters issue is?

mascherano

have you checked for emotional damage, as well as the physical damage?

niccy

"what is wrong with the drive"

well before i could hardly hear it,if at all !

now it resembles the noise a Lambretta 200SX scooter ( 1970s ) makes:eek:

and from that i am deduceing that i have physically damaged it at least. Proberbly its now acheived some logical damage as well.

So my thoughts were:o to move everything lock stock and barrel to my external hard drive, buy a new internal one ( 120 pounds:mad: ) and move everything back. In my naivety i thought this would be a very simple procedure.

My most valuable things are my photos ( 8000) which i had backed up on dvd, bt digital vault,a pen drive and my external h/d , so no worries there, but there are programs that i dont want to lose and a few musings in Word:rotfl:

skiddy2k

I've heard many good things about Nortons Ghost, but the only one I've used is Archronis True Image and it served me well

alanclarke

Apricorn sell the EZ Universal Hard Drive Upgrade Kit for laptops. It consists of a cradle to hold your new hard disk which connects to USB port. It includes software to clone old hard disk to new.

This will save you having to clone to an external hard drive and then to new hard disk.

Looking on froogle.co.uk it sells for about £30

Full details are at www.apricorn.com/products.php?cat_id=52