Ghosting a hard drive mage???

[davidharvey75]

Hi guys, I was just wondering if i could get some help here.
I am considering buying an Advent 4211 netbook from PCworld, it has windows xp installed on it's 80gb hard drive. But i was thinking on swapping the 80gb for a 320gb hd. This i know has already been done, but the guides on how to do it start to loose me!
The problem is how to get the windows xp bootup and ALL other drivers that are on the 80gb to the 320gb drive. I have heard it is called Ghosting and that Norton have a program called ghost, to do this. But as i said all the tutorials i've seen on the web say you have to have an external cd/dvdrom. My desktop computer doesn't support sata, which is what the hd's for the Advent are. I have got square eyes, trying to understand how i can get xp onto the 320gb hd.
Sorry for the long drawn out question, but if anybody has any suggestions that they can put into very simple terms, i would be very gratefull.
Or indeed if you think i'm wasting my time putting in another gig of ram and upgrading the hd then i would like to from you too.
Thanks

[gazz10]

You talk about buying new from pcworld and then taking h/d out and then adding another and also talk of adding more ram, well if doing all that the warranty will be void as it been laptop been opened, pc world should be able to upgrade and could probably come to some kind of price agreement if you give them the 80gb.

Anyway onto ghosting. Norton ghost or even Acronis True Image both can create backup image of full drive.

Only ever used norton ghost and was a few years ago and was straight forward but you needed floppy drive too, but am sure with the latest editions am sure floppy drive will be thing of past

On lighter note, i have 3 laptops and all 3 are not running the software that came with the machine i find they pack it with stuff thats never used and just slows laptop down. I would personally stick the bigger harddrive in and just add win xp or vista and do that way, only my opinion

[Booya16]

Try this tutorial site

Hi,

Try this site Radified Guide to Norton Ghost (Symantec) - A Tutorial on How to Create, Save & Restore Hard Drive Back-up Ghost Images . I found it to be very useful in the past.

Booya16

[Curious123]

Leaving aside the warranty issues mentioned by gazz10 and these should not be taken lightly. To ghost the pc you will need another drive or partition to dump your 80gb disc. You will need a ghost boot disc which is basically a bootable disc with the ghost.exe file and this can either be a floppy disc or cd rom. What you do is dump the 80gb disc to another disc/partition swap the disc so that you now have the 320gb drive and than dump the 80gb disc data back down to your pc and it should be the same as before except the pc now has 320gb drive rather than the 80gb drive.

[davidharvey75]

Thanks for the quick reply Gazz10.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean about asking pc world to upgrade for me. I just assuned it would be like the PS3. you get the hard drive it comes with and if you want to change it, it's up to you. Granted this would know doubt void the warranty.

I ain't too clued up on getting xp onto the drive in the first place. Can i use a usb flash drive to boot up and transfer all the needed files to the hard drive that way?

As i say it's the removing of win xp from the 80gb, and adding it to the 320gb drive that i have the problem with.

Thanks for your reply.

[Curious123]

Thanks for the quick reply Gazz10.
I'm not 100% sure what you mean about asking pc world to upgrade for me. I just assuned it would be like the PS3. you get the hard drive it comes with and if you want to change it, it's up to you. Granted this would know doubt void the warranty.

I ain't too clued up on getting xp onto the drive in the first place. Can i use a usb flash drive to boot up and transfer all the needed files to the hard drive that way?

As i say it's the removing of win xp from the 80gb, and adding it to the 320gb drive that i have the problem with.

Thanks for your reply.

If you don't ghost your 80gb hard drive than the only way you will get xp onto your 320gb drive is by installing it manually with aWindows Xp Cd Rom and that will be painfull as you will need to search out all the drivers for your pc yourself.

[davidharvey75]

Thanks for the replys guys.
Curious123, can the floppy disc or cdrom part be substituted with the usbflash. The Netbook only has usb, and my desktop hasn't got sata, and i don't have an external cdrom.
If i could run norton ghost from the netbook and save the iso/bootup image to the usb drive , then just change over the harddrive, bootup from the usb. (i will read through the tutorial that Booya16 posted)
Don't mean to come across pushy guys. I appreciate the help, just not knowledged up enough, so it will probably seem like i'm repeating myself over and over.
Please bear with me.

[Curious123]

It is much harder to create a bootable usbflash than it is a bootable cd rom. I would have thought that your notebook would have a cd rom drive. I don't think Ghost will allow you to boot from a drive and than dump to the same drive. The ideal situation for you is to boot from cd rom and than dump to a second pc via crossover ethernet cable or a parallel cable or a external USB drive.

[davidharvey75]

Thanks again guys. I'll have to research into it more before buying the Netbook.
But thanks for all the help.

[Devilfish]

Stuff the drivers etc ...just put the new hdd in and install windoze, you can use a usb stick for any drivers that need to be added.

A windoze update usually finds that kind of stuff anyway.

[caveman_nige]

Stuff the drivers etc ...just put the new hdd in and install windoze, you can use a usb stick for any drivers that need to be added.

A windoze update usually finds that kind of stuff anyway.

I would go with this method from DF if it were mine, this will get rid of a lot of the crap that get put on a machine when it is factory imaged. Before you do it though, go into the 'device manager' and take a note of the devices. video card, sound card, wifi card etc etc and start downloading drivers for them all just in case XP doesn't get them, if XP does find them thats fine but it will not put on the apps that control thses devices etc.

However, method two, for the cautious first time restorer would be to use this next method. With most machines thesedays you will receive a factory 'restore CD/DVD' that will allow you reload your machine in the event that you ~~~~ it up at some time in the future, this disk will be bootable and will allow you to restore you machine to an its delivery state. If you do not have one, call PC ****az and chew somebodies arse and ask why you don't have one etc.

Method Three, if you really wanna go the ghosting route, then download the Hiren CD (free), it contains just about every tool you could possibly need to backup and restore (Ghost, Acronis etc etc) as well as a stack of other essential tools for the PC tinkerer. With this bootable CD it has the facility (in the menu) to image current HDD to DVD or multiple DVDs. You will then be able to install you new HDD into your laptop and boot off the Hiren CD and then restore your machine from the DVDs you created and hey presto you are done..

Let us know how you get on..

P.S. Do not pay for the Hiren CD, it is free, the latest version is 9.5 and it the life saver for every PC user, trust me..

http://rapidshare.com/files/103459751/9Down.COM_Hirens.BootCD.9.5.rar

[Dreamer]

Laptops are available in all sorts of different specs, so I think If you are buying a new laptop, you should get it to the specifications you want in the first place.

For a few extra bucks it will save you a whole load of hassle and keep your warranty intact.

Normally windows does find the drivers but sometimes not all of them. It can be a pain trying to find the right ones.

The following free driver backup programs may help anyone who is considering a fresh system rebuild.

These should work for both XP and Vista

net-runna Free Tools
Download DriverMax and update your Windows Vista drivers


Download DriverMax and update your Windows Vista drivers
net-runna Free Tools

[davidharvey75]

Thanks to everybody for their responses, just to clarify though, it's a Netbook. Not a laptop so it doesn't have any cd/dvd rom drive.

Advent 4211 Netbook

I have noticed some people either selling or making their own usb bootup drive.

Usb bootable drive.

I do take your point about the catious first timer caveman. (thats what i am).
Sounds like the easiest way might be to see about a usb cd/dvd rom as somebody mentioned earlier on.
Thanks again everyone.

[Curious123]

Just out of curiousity why do you need such a large hdd that you are prepared to go through all of this hard work.

[davidharvey75]

Just like having enough space for all the things i like doing. Movies, Music, etc.
I know the Netbook only has a 10 inch screen and doesn't have all that much power, but it means that i can carry around my media and programs. Anywhere. And like the idea of being able to work on Excel and Spreadsheets while on the move.
Just like Gadgets.