- All Forums
-
General
-
Television
-
DVDs & Films
-
Hardware
-
PCs & Mobiles
-
Photography
-
Music
-
Gaming and Consoles
-
MAD
-
Sports
-
Trading
-
Retailer Reviews
-
Bargain Buckets
-
Region Hacks
PCs & Mobiles Forum - Help with lappy hdd change - Page 1
Elite
Right,
I have bought myself a new hdd fro my old and trusty Dell inspiron 9400.
I have updated the BIOS so I know the comp can take a 320GB hdd, using True Acronis I have cloned the old drive hidden partitions and all.
When I swap out the drive and put in the new one the computer starts to boot then I get some blue screen error telling me to run checkdisk and remove any newly installed HDD.
My thinking is that the new drive might not be booting up in the right sector and thus is unable to load Windows, as Dell drives have hidden partions etc.
Does anyone know of any software that I could run off a cd on bootup and then select the sector I want as master.
I know cloning a drive is not the best way of adding a new hdd, but I don't have the windows disks and can't really be bothered to reinstall everything all over again. There is nothing wrong with my old drive I just want more space.
Elite Donator
Dunno if it would help with this, but Hiren's boot CD has MiniXP on it which boots right off the disc.
Cut down version of XP but might let you do as you want, or one of the other hard drive manipulators might. 
(if it works, don't thank me, Miles told me about it a coupla months back lol)
Jimbo : oÞ
"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"
Super Admin
I suspect the copying of the hidden partitions are causing the problem. Unless you need them (got the license key for the OS and the install disks? Or can download them somewhere?) I would just copy the primary partition with the install on it and not bother about the hidden stuff.
Editor
DVD REVIEWER
MYREVIEWER.COM
"The Green Belt policy is a Labour Policy, and we intend to Build on it"
John Prescott
Elite
how about windows recovery disc and
fixmbr
?
or you can do a similar thing from s supergrubdisc which is quicker and easier.
as mentioned above Hiren's is bound to have somehting
Elite
I'd be more inclined to use Gh**t on Hirens personally, especially if you can connect both drives to a desktop to perform the cloning, selecting whole drive & then manually increasing the size of the system partition.
I have used Paragon Drive Copy 9.0 that was going free this time last year & used it when migrating my laptop 40Gb HDD to an 320Gb one via USB SATA\IDE adaptor without any hitches.
I consider myself an optimist, albeit an optimist with cynical tendencies and a dark side that Lucifer himself would find a little creepy. (Perhaps you’ve noticed.) You don’t normally associate cynicism with an upbeat pov. But I have exactly that combination and will defend it.
Violent & emotionally unstable duck with rocket propelled grenade launcher, seeks desk job preferably around other people.
Moderator at ADTelly - Accessing UK & US TV from overseas.
Non referal link.
This item was edited on Wednesday, 10th March 2010, 19:43
Elite
Cheers guys I'll have a looksee over the weekend and hopefully sort it.
