Laptop Hard Drive Failing on Dell Studio
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Thread: Laptop Hard Drive Failing on Dell Studio

  1. #1
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    Laptop Hard Drive Failing on Dell Studio

    Need to order a new HD. I have a recovery partition but how can I use it after installing a new HD? Would love to ghost or clone old hard drive but wanted to get a larger hard drive and read that the clone will show as same size and don't know how I would get the laptop to boot. Does anyone have any suggestions as to the best way to add a new hd or will I just have to lose everything on failing hd? It's still ok enough to copy files, etc... This is on a dell studio 1735 running vista home. Hope to upgrade to win 7 after I get this done. I have the win 7 upgrade cd. Thanks for any suggestions.

  2. #2
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    I have a recovery partition but how can I use it after installing a new HD?
    You don't. The recovery partition is part of the hard drive.

    Would love to ghost or clone old hard drive but wanted to get a larger hard drive and read that the clone will show as same size and don't know how I would get the laptop to boot.
    If the drive is bad, there is no point in trying to clone it.

    Hope to upgrade to win 7 after I get this done. I have the win 7 upgrade d.
    Then just run the Win7 installation. You should be prompted for the Vista DVD.

  3. #3
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    I was hoping I wouldn't have to locate all of my installed programs but I guess I would probably have to do that anyway. Thank you for your reply.

  4. #4
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    You may be able to clone the old drive. The cloned copy may even boot, depending on where the bad sectors are or if there are other errors. Or, it may not boot without a repair install or reinstall of Windows. Some software may also have to be reinstalled. You should be able to download software to clone the old drive to the new one from the new drive manufacturer's web site. It couldn't hurt to try. No guarantees of success though. I have sometimes been able to clone failing drives, other times they were too far gone. A backup plan for your files might be a good idea after you are up and running again.
    Last edited by jdc2000; January 2nd, 2011 at 01:50 AM.

  5. #5
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    Ok thanks so much.

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