Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

After a year with a X41T I have decided the extra power of the X60T would be an advantage and have just purchased one. Can I ask though the best way to swap everything from the 40gb HDD on the X41 to the 80Gb on the X60?

I use my laptop for work (they have kindly said I can use my own machine rather than the one on offer!) so I want to be able to switch over the network (VPN) settings etc., if possible. I have read about Acronis True Image but has anyone experience of using this and will it really work with a complete mirror from one machine to another meaning I can just transfer everything and start using the X60 just like that? Sounds too good to be true! I guess you then return the X41 to the factory settings and off you go.

No doubt some of the drivers will be different so I take it I would then have to replace the X41 drivers with the X60 ones - not a problem as long as the X60 boots up Ok with the clone of the X41 on it!

If this is possible can you connect both laptops together or do you need an external caddy (not easy if so as the X41 uses the smaller HDD).

Any help on this would be gratefully received!

Thanks, Mike

One, and probably the biggest obstacle you have to overcome is that the X41t uses a PATA HD while the X60t uses a SATA HD which require different drivers when you boot Windows, i.e., just cloning the HD will not get you anywhere. After you clone your current HD, you would need to patch it with the correct drivers before it is usable in the new machine. I have never done this myself but heard that it is a lot of hassle.
There may be other tools that let you migrate only the applications and their settings, but, again, I've never used those (I think MS or even Lenovo as part of the Thinkvantage tools offer this - a new thread in the general Thinkpad question forum might yield better answers than mine here, or maybe there is/are already threads about this).
I've always found that if no straight clone is possible, it is easier to set up the new machine from scratch (which also gets rid of a lot of things no longer used/needed)

Hi there, many thanks for the reply and I suspected it wouldn't be as easy as I had hoped!

The main reason i wanted to try to clone the drive was the fact that I am using my own machine for work purposes and don't want to be a nuisance asking for the setup process again. I will look in to the migration options as this sounds a good way forward if it is possible.

Thanks again, Mike

Thanks again for the tip - migration assistant worked like a charm copying over everything I needed. The only area it seemed to fail with concerned passwords for my email account and the VPN I had on my X41 - otherwise it was great.

Glad to be of (some) help. I've never used the "migration assistant". Would you mind giving a rough outline of the steps you took to use it (for future reference)? (e.g., did this on old computer, blah, blah, did this on new computer, blah, blah, etc.)