Thinkpads Forum

I'd like to upgrade a HDD in a notebook that is probably about to go bad.

Does anyone know of any free programs/utilities that will do a sector to sector copy of the drive (thus making it both bootable & not requiring a re-install of Windows?)

I normally just do a clean install with HDD's, but I currently have neither the time nor patience to get everything set back up to my liking.

FWIW, both are Hitachi drives and I didn't see any upgrade/copy programs on the HGS website (unlike Seagate that has some awesome free tools, but only work with Seagate drives).

You don't need a sector-copy, imaging will do.
Use this free program:
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

or if you don't like it, select more from here:
http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities ... mage.shtml

some of the hard drive companies, like Western Digital, have utility programs that you can download for free that let you copy drives, but I think they have some way of knowing whether you have their drive, or not.

RealBlackStuff wrote:You don't need a sector-copy, imaging will do.
Use this free program:
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Thanks for the links, it worked great!