Installation of New Bigger HDD

[DW190]

I am about to replace the hdd in my Inspiron laptop. It has a 60gb from new and I am increasing it to 160gb.

I am told that the Bios will restrict or partition the new drive to 60gb.

Can anyone explain in layman terms how I can change the settings to allow it to use the full 160gb?

 

[ManofScience]

I am told that the Bios will restrict or partition the new drive to 60gb.

by who?

are doing a clean installation on it or using recovery disks to put the OS on?

 

[leepylee]

na m8, it wont restrict your drive at all, your 160gb will be fine, in all my 15years as an IT technician ive never heard of that...

install will be fine

 

[jaffa]

I think someone has been mixed up there m8 and guessed that there was a factory reset partition which would set it to 60gb but you wont be using the old hdd where that partition is, so as said above...the new hdd will install fine.

 

[oneman]

That sounds like BS unless the person is referring to some autoconfiguration done by the recovery disk which they are expecting you to use to install the OS to the new hard drive.

If you don't want to start from fresh (which I would recommend), use a utility such as acronis which can make a HDD to HDD copy and resize partitions. This will take your existing installation to the new hard disk including all your apps, settings and data.

If you can get hold of a 2.5 HDD to USB cable or caddy (borrow or buy one for around £10) then attach the new drive to the laptop USB. Then use acronis for cloning the drive and at same time resize the partition to fill the new drive. There is a wizard for doing this, its very easy). Then physically swap the drives over, one reboot and you should be done.

 

[DW190]

That sounds like BS unless the person is referring to some autoconfiguration done by the recovery disk which they are expecting you to use to install the OS to the new hard drive.

If you don't want to start from fresh (which I would recommend), use a utility such as acronis which can make a HDD to HDD copy and resize partitions. This will take your existing installation to the new hard disk including all your apps, settings and data.

If you can get hold of a 2.5 HDD to USB cable or caddy (borrow or buy one for around £10) then attach the new drive to the laptop USB. Then use acronis for cloning the drive and at same time resize the partition to fill the new drive. There is a wizard for doing this, its very easy). Then physically swap the drives over, one reboot and you should be done.

That sounds good to me. I shall do a google for acronis and give it a try. I got a 2.5 caddy so should be a steal.

 

[techquest]

For acronis just download Hirens Boot CD which has all the tools you need and it free.

Hiren's BootCD 10.2 - www.hiren.info

 

[DW190]

For acronis just download Hirens Boot CD which has all the tools you need and it free.

Hiren's BootCD 10.2 - www.hiren.info

Forgive me for being absolutely thick but when I follow the link I cant find anywhere on the page linking to the actual download for the Boot CD.

You'll probably tell me its staring me in the face but I'll be dammed if I can see it.

 

[oneman]

You can't download the boot disk from the site as it contains copyrighted utils. You can find it in the usual places, torrent, usenet, rapidshare, etc.

I

 

[DW190]

You can't download the boot disk from the site as it contains copyrighted utils. You can find it in the usual places, torrent, usenet, rapidshare, etc.

I

Cheers, got it now.