Laptop and New HDD Question..

I love having questions here at ATS.. This is the finest collection of individuals in the world and they are always ready to help..

I hope..

Anyway, here goes...

I have a Laptop that is pretty nice.. Acer 5610Z

Problem, small HDD...

Question..

If I buy one of the new HDD's say the 1TB.. How do I change the valid copy of Windows Vista over to the new HDD?

Thanks in advance..

Semper

you reinstall the OS and it "may" activate on its own. if not it will provide an 800 number which you call to activate it. make sure you have your key handy, should be in your documentation.

if the automated message does not activate your key then you will be transferred to a live representative. explain to this person what you are doing and they will give you a key to type in the activation window. this is standard practice as some peoples hard drives dies and you own a legal copy of the license.

if you lost your documentation you can get your key from vista make sure you have a key before you do anything!

acquiring vista product key

i should remind you that always buy hard drives in two's unless you plan on losing everything you own digitally. back up important data from your hard drive to an external source, either another networked PC or external HD.

[edit on 20-8-2009 by mvirata]

[edit on 20-8-2009 by mvirata]

reply to post by mvirata


No see if I had a disk, that would be easy..

The Laptop came preloaded with Vista Home Premium with a recover sectioned out of the primary disk..

The copy of Vista is an OEM copy that exists only on the PC

It came with no disk..

Semper

reply to post by semperfortis


Do a backup on the new harddrive with a program such as this:

major geeks

Although this is shareware, I'm sure you can find a free copy similar somewhere.

reply to post by semperfortis


there should be a create a recovery disk option when you click start > programs. when you do this it should put the current state of your OS on DVD. i advise making two copies of this in case one disk goes bad. you could just pop in the new HD and use the recovery disk. it should work fine. the only problem i see is it may not use all the disk space of your new HD. i dont think this will happen but if it does you can just recover the extra space and add it to your partition using this free software.

free partition manager

you may want to give a call to the place you bought it from if you cant find the recovery disk option. you should actually do this even if you change you mind because if your vista crashes you need the ability to recover quickly. though your not totally hosed because the place you bought it from will likely have a solution.

Semper,

We actually have two separate issues, and we need to define them to see what's really going on.

1) Will your Acer see a full terra-byte hard-drive?

2) "IF" it can, you need to clone your current hard-drive.
(cloning means using a special program to create a "bootable" copy of the hard-drive on the new hard-drive. That means you would install the new drive and it would be like the old drive, only larger)

I have only seen references to 500 gig hard-drives for your laptop.
I don't know if it supports it.
(try contacting Acer and asking them if it does or if it will with a bios upgrade)

Assuming it can, here is the rest.

Take a desktop computer and install a cloning program (like norton ghost).
put both your old laptop hard-drive and the new one into the desktop computer.

The cloning software will guide you through.

PLEASE!!!! take note of what drive is what letter by your desktop computer.

You want to copy old drive to new drive, not other way around...D'OH

reply to post by mrmonsoon


OK

Even if it will only take a 500 and your sure it will??? I will get that...

It only has an 40 currently and I use it for work and it is almost full.. The 500 would work just fine and save some money too...

Semper.....

Go here, go down to hard drives.......

It lists hard-drives for your laptop from 30 gig to 500 gig.

Kinda expensive, $225USD, but .......

I will look for more 500's @ better price.
(hopefully work pays for it)

kahlon.com...

This one looks better, 7200 rpm (fast for a laptop)
www.ca.buy.com...