XPS M1330 Hard Drive upgrade

Hi All -

I have decided to upgrade the Drive to a new 320Gb.

Bought the drive before checking this forum and learning it is impossible (or I can't find anyone in this Forum), to get all the partitions in place.

Questions if you could help please -

1) I am expecting to just take an image of my C: Drive and write it to my new disk.

Will this work?

I know that doing the above means the stand alone media player wont work - but I have never used it and don't need it.

2) If I did a fresh install with all the original disks i.e. complete from scratch. will the process set up all the partitions and install a full factory installation? If this were to work - my plan would then be; to burn the C: image from my original drive to the C: Partition on this new drive.

Essentialy - I would like to get it all working - but could live with a full working copy of Vista.

This is a real sorry state of affairs. I have just upgraded a Sony Vaio with the equivelent of the Media program without problem. This is a brand new machine supplied by my Company, but i wanted to install my own software. So, I made the backup Disks as suggested; before I did anything. I then implanted a new Hard Disk (purchased for my use only) and ran the backup Disks. Perfect - all worked as it should. I just physicaly swap the Drives between work and personal.

Regards

Martin

Responses(1)

M

Martininnes

11 Posts

0

September 2nd, 2008 18:00

OK - This is where I am -

I have fully installed OS including all partitions on a new 320Gb 7200 hard disk. All this by using the supplied disks and instructions with the computer from Dell. Also the Media thingy button works. So all partitions are PERFECT.

Created Acronis Boot Disks

Loaded Acronis into my original small drive and copied the C partition and wrote it to an external USB Drive.

Inserted newly created hard disk into the PC. Remember it all works - but doesn;t have all my programs.

Inserted Acronis boot disk and switched on

Selected the option to write my backed up C Drive on the USB drive to C

Waited 40 mins

Rebooted - Failed

Couldnt find bootmngr

Inserted CD Reinstallation CD and selected repair. Had to do this twice

Rebooted and everyrhing booted into Vista great with over 200Gb space

Next had to format the extra space that was showing as a G drive

then changed drive letter from G to D and rebooted

Prayed

All worked - BUT - Not a problem for me but noticed this:

Pressing the PC Media |Direct button from the off - boots the PC and then provides all the operations as expected. Not sure this is supposed to happen. But I don't give a toss.

Upshot - I can use everything - nowhave a 320Gb hard drive - and the original as now a smaller spare in any event.

HAPPY ? - You bet

Martin

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XPS M1330 Hard Drive upgrade