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Solved: Swap hard drive between 2 laptops?

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anotheruser2's Avatar
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20-Oct-2009, 01:38 PM #16
Okay, I am installing it.
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20-Oct-2009, 07:21 PM #17
Okay, I got this error message when I select "clone disc"
"Unable to continue. You have only one drive. This program is designed to work with two or more drives."

So, can I put my laptop hard drive into my desktop?

EDIT: I found another option to make a full backup of my hard drive into a .tib file. But this does not look like it would work unless I had 2 hard drives in one machine...

Last edited by anotheruser2; 20-Oct-2009 at 07:27 PM..
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20-Oct-2009, 08:52 PM #18
Have you tried just using the partition tools rather than the full disk tools.
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20-Oct-2009, 10:24 PM #19
I'm not sure which partition tools you are talking about.
If you mean the vista partition manager, I used it to make 2 partitions on the 160GB, but Acronis wants me to have 2 hard disks.
Could I possibly make a 120GB and 120GB partitions on the 250GB hard drive and copy the 160GB's first 60GB partition (with Vista on it) to the 250GB's second (Non-vista) partition and boot 2 different vistas from the same hard drive? And then move the 250GB's original Vista to the 160GB hard drive's 2nd partition??

Thanks for all your response!
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21-Oct-2009, 12:54 AM #20
He is referring to cloning a partition rather than an entire drive
I did some cloning with seagate tools a few weeks ago...I cloned to an external hard drive the took it out of the case and put it in the pc.

You will have to either put both drives in the same pc or use one as an external...this is why you received the error
beings you already have an external..you can always throw that in the mix
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21-Oct-2009, 03:53 AM #21
Ghost is easy enough to use. Get the third drive and do the imaging.
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21-Oct-2009, 05:13 PM #22
Okay, I will try mounting my laptop hard drive into the desktop and see how that works.

Thanks

PS: I will try to respond tomorrow a bit after this time (I am kind of busy until then).

Last edited by anotheruser2; 21-Oct-2009 at 06:45 PM.. Reason: added PS
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21-Oct-2009, 07:59 PM #23
Quote:
Originally Posted by anotheruser2 View Post
Okay, I will try mounting my laptop hard drive into the desktop and see how that works.

Thanks

PS: I will try to respond tomorrow a bit after this time (I am kind of busy until then).
Thet are 2 different sizes...wont work
I would use my external for the cloning
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22-Oct-2009, 07:36 PM #24
srry some more stuff came up.
ill try it tomorrow or saturday...
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23-Oct-2009, 03:28 PM #25
Okay, I managed to set up network sharing between the 2 laptops and had a plan to install my computer on that drive and then that computer on this drive, but it turned out that Acronis True Image would not install on the other laptop because it did not have a WD drive in it.

Any other programs?
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23-Oct-2009, 03:55 PM #26
what brand is your external
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24-Oct-2009, 04:15 PM #27
The external 80GB is Iomega brand.
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25-Oct-2009, 07:38 PM #28
I think I can swap the drives now, but I just need a working program to do so.

My plan is to move my 60GB primary Vista image onto the 250GB hard drive and copy it to the second partition for the 250GB hard drive (there will be 2 vistas on 1 hard drive). Then boot up the 250GB hard drive on my computer using the 2nd vista and move the 1st vista to the 160GB hard drive.

Last edited by anotheruser2; 26-Oct-2009 at 01:18 AM..
anotheruser2's Avatar
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31-Oct-2009, 02:37 AM #29
Any ideas?
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09-Nov-2009, 12:34 AM #30
Okay. I have done the swap using Acronis True Image Home 2010 Trial.

1. I copied image of the primary on the 160GB to the 250GB through network connection (hella slow).
2. I restored that image to a new ~70GB partition at the end of the 250GB hard drive.
3. I copied the image of the primary on the 250GB hard drive to an external USB hard drive (fast).
4. I restored the 250GB hard drive onto the 160GB hard drive's original primary partition (using Acronis' Boot CD available to burn in the trial version of Acronis True Image 2010)
5. I had to use Vista DVD repair to allow the Vista's to be booted from
6. I am now copying my remaining files form the 160GB hard drive's 2nd partition to this new 250GB hard drive's 2nd partition

Tips:
-Network file sharing is hella slow (like 1MB/s)! Use external USB 2.0 hard drive
-Acronis TI is a good program! The trial version is supposedly fully functional and gave me no problems. It also lets you compress your hard drive images to smaller sizes
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