Hard Drive Installation Success

[ronbo613]

Decided to take the plunge and upgrade the hard drive in the old T30. Decided on the 80G 7200rpm Travelstar HTS721080G9AT00. This Thinkpad is used mainly for use in the field, internet and email access. I have a bunch of external USB2.0 drives, so a big hard drive isn't needed. I wanted a backup clone of the Thinkpad drive in case there are problems, I just send in the clones and get back to work. The 7200rpm speed is nice and the original 5400rpm drive will be the backup.
First, I cloned the original drive using an Acronis Rescue Disc to a 3.5" hard drive in a USB2.0 enclosure. Then, I took out the original drive and installed the new one. Then, I rebooted with the Acronis Rescue Disc using the Full Mode(using the Safe Mode will not include the USB drivers needed to run the USB2.0 PCMICA card and external drive) and cloned the drive in the USB enclosure to the new drive.
Acronis kicked the system into Windows, I removed the Acronis disc, turned off the external drive and shut the computer down.
Happily, I watched the Thinkpad boot into Windows and now it's 7200rpm all the way with a spare drive in the file cabinet in case of trouble.
If you work with computers, especially if you have a lot of hard drives, Acronis True Image has to be one of the best things you can buy. I think I paid $30 for the copy I have, it has saved me so much time and so many headaches, I can recommend to everyone.
Stoked.