external hard drive

mug51

hi,

I am looking to replace my laptop hard drive, as I think it will break up soon, but until it does I would put my old one into an enclosure and transfer as much data off it as i can.

I would like to find an external portable hard drive, and just make a quick switch over. However, I need that hard drive in that enclosure to have an eide or pata interface, but am struggling to find one.

I could go the other route and buy a hard drive and enclosure separately but those enclosures don't look as good, and it will cost slightly more this way.

Any help will be appreciated.
Thank you

snowman2_2

Try Ebuyer.com, they tend to be very cheap. What you need is a 2 1/2" laptop hard drive and a 2 1/2" drive enclosure (should be a tenner or thereabouts). Put the new drive into the enclosure and get Acronis Easy Migrate as a download. You get a free trial for a month which is plenty of time. Set it to transfer your current hard drive into the new hard drive in the enclosure and when it is done, simply swap the 2 hard drives. It should give you an exact copy, with an identical laptop but with new hard drive. Most hard drives will come with the same connections so you shouldn't have to worry too much about eide / PATA (same thing effectively). SATA & PATA are only really relevant for desktop hard drives (3 1/2"). I did this myself when I filled my old 27Gb drive and I am using the laptop now so it works.

mug51

snowman2 wrote: »

Most hard drives will come with the same connections so you shouldn't have to worry too much about eide / PATA (same thing effectively). SATA & PATA are only really relevant for desktop hard drives (3 1/2"). I did this myself when I filled my old 27Gb drive and I am using the laptop now so it works.

Thanks
So i can use a SATA one instead even if though the one i'm replacing is a PATA? didn't think I could do that. I could get a faster HD if thats the case.