Re-building a laptop

[Gazzr]

Hi All,

My Sony Vaio is about 5 years old and getting clogged up with crap but still works well. I want to replace the hard drive and upgrade the RAM at the same time and re-install XP.

Is there a way that I can install the operating system on an external hard drive (I can create a separate partiton), install all the software I need firefox, itunes etc etc) and then "copy" this image across from the External HD to the new internal hard drive? That way I can carry on using the laptop as normal until I am sure that I have a setup on the External Hard drive that would work.

Has anyone done this before with success?

Gazzr

 

[Greger]

Don't bother, just install to the new hard drive and run limited software to check.

You shouldn't have a problem as long as the new drive and ram are within the spec of the machine.

Why do you want to replace the hard drive anyway - is it to small or unstable? If not why not just reformat and reinstall on it.

Usual advice with these things is if it works leave it alone.

 

[Den]

Why do you want to replace the hard drive anyway - is it to small or unstable?

Or would the polis be interested in looking through its content, Hmmm ?

 

[Magwych]

I have done something similar a couple of times, with success.

I use Acronis True Image to make a back up copy of the original drive. It creates an "image" of the entire partition. With the software comes an app to build a bootable recovery CD.
That CD contains enough apps to partition the new drive and restore the image.

Having made your back up image, shut down the laptop, upgrade the memory and add the new drive. Put the CD in your drive, start up and boot to the CD, then restore the image to the new drive. The software will also allow you to repartition the new disk to whatever size you need...

There are other products out there that do exactly the same thing, this is the only one I have used; and it worked fine.

It took a long time on a USB1. 0 system, not quite so bad on a USB 2.0 laptop., but still take some hours. Once that is done, and the laptop re-booted off the new disk, re-install XP. If the install goes wrong you know you can restore off the back up image.

Re-installing XP and all your apps sounds like a simple task but it can take ages to find the original software, and then get all the patches and updates you may have installed.