[Tylinos]

Before trying to find a new hard drive, how do I find out what kinds of hard drives are compatable with my computer?

Also, looking at that drive-cloning program, it seems I somehow would need to connect the old and new hard drives, but I'm not quite sure how to do that.

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From the specs on your existing hd it is a:
[list]

[*] IDE connector
[*] Interface Ultra ATA/100
[*] Cache 8MB
[*] Capacity 80GB
[/list

So as long as the drive is at least the specs above especially it has to be a IDE connection then you should be ok.
Now connecting the two drives may be a problem. You may have to also purchase a external hd enclosure and put the new drive in it and connect to your system via a usb port on your laptop.

[rshaffer61]

From the specs on your existing hd it is a:
[list]

[*] IDE connector
[*] Interface Ultra ATA/100
[*] Cache 8MB
[*] Capacity 80GB
[/list

So as long as the drive is at least the specs above especially it has to be a IDE connection then you should be ok.
Now connecting the two drives may be a problem. You may have to also purchase a external hd enclosure and put the new drive in it and connect to your system via a usb port on your laptop.

[rshaffer61]

The other option is to start completely over which would mean getting a XP disk that matched the version you have on the system now and reload everything fresh.
Since you have the data backed up then you would just have to copy the data back to the drive then.

[Tylinos]

Does it seem if the below hard drive will be compatable? It's listed as UDMA/100, which a search seems to show as just being another name for ATA/100. Along with this, one of the reviews does say it works with an IDE port.

http://www.amazon.co.../dp/B000W42EI0/





EDIT: Also, would this external enclosure work?

http://www.amazon.co.../dp/B000FNBYKW/

Edited by Tylinos, 03 September 2010 - 01:53 PM.

[rshaffer61]

Yes on both and good job finding them both.
What you would want to do is put the new drive in the external enclosure and image the old drive to the new drive.
Then take new drive out of enclosure and replace the old drive in the laptop with the new one.
Boot up and if everything is working correctly you for the most part are done.
You could take the old drive and put it in the external and format it then and use it as added drive space for data.
I'm not sure I would do that since it failed the diagnostics tests though.

[Tylinos]

Alright, thanks for all of your help. I'll order both of them and post an update in this topic when I get them in as to whether or not this worked and solved the problem. Hopefully this will be the end for this whole thing.

[Tylinos]

I finally got the drive and enclosure in and have hooked them up as an external so I can clone my main drive, but I'm having a problem. The computer detects it, but no way of accessing it is coming up. It isn't showing up on the hard drive list under My Computer.

Edited by Tylinos, 15 September 2010 - 01:35 PM.

[rshaffer61]

Go to Start then to Run
Type in compmgmt.msc and click Enter
On left side click on Disk Management
On right side you will see you hard drive.
Now I need you to take a screenshot and attach it to your next reply. Do the following to take a screenshot while the above is open and showing on your desktop.

To do a screenshot please have click on your Print Screen on your keyboard. It is normally the key above your number pad between the F12 key and the Scroll Lock key
Now go to Start and then to All Programs
Scroll to Accessories and then click on Paint
In the Empty White Area click and hold the CTRL key and then click the V
Go to the File option at the top and click on Save as
Save as file type JPEG and save it to your Desktop


Attach it to your next reply

[Tylinos]

Attached the screenshot. It's showing up in the bottom part with the chart, but not the full list.


EDIT: The attachment doesn't seem to be showing up for some reason, so here's a direct link to the screenshot.

http://img693.images.../7585/discs.jpg



EDIT 2: The disc cloning software seems to be detecting it just fine, though, which I think is all I really need right now. Should I go through with cloning the disc?

Edited by Tylinos, 15 September 2010 - 02:02 PM.

[rshaffer61]

I take it the 149.05 unallocated is the new drive correct?
Right click on the unallocated space.
You should get another window open with the option to Partition the drive.
Setup the partition using all available space.
Now when done then right click again and this time Format using NTFS
Once formatted the drive should now show up in My Computer and be able to use.

[Tylinos]

I've been using the hard drive cloning program suggested earlier in this thread (Easeus), but it's been going incredibly slowly due to the computer problems in the first place, moving at a pace of about 1% every 30 minutes. Surely there has to be a better way to do this?

[rshaffer61]

Depends on the problems.
I myself always used Nortons Ghost but it's not free.
HDclone is another free one but it will only copy over exactly the partition from the source drive.
You will then need a partitioning software to extend the partition out from there.

[Tylinos]

It finished. Swapping out the hard drives took a bit of work due to some very tough screws, but after finally swapping them out, everything works perfectly. The cloning seems to have copied everything with no problem, and the computer problems also seem to be completely gone.

Thanks very much to everyone for all of your help through this.

One last question (hopefully), though. Is it possible to increase a partition size without deleting the data on that partition? I have the extra space on the hard drive, but none of it's allocated. I could always make a new partition to use it, but I may as well ask this first.

Edited by Tylinos, 16 September 2010 - 03:03 PM.

[rshaffer61]

Are you talking about the C drive and stretching the partition out to take up the whole drive?
Redo post 53 with a new screenshot if you would please so I can see the new hd and the partitions it set up.

[Tylinos]

Yes, I mean stretching the C Drive to fill the 74 GB of unallocated space, if that's possible without risking ruining any data. If I have to, I can just make that a new partition instead, though.

http://img709.images...2354/discs2.jpg

Edited by Tylinos, 16 September 2010 - 04:24 PM.