Thinkpads Forum

Can anybody recommend a safe way to clone the hard drive on a Transote? It has the original hard drive with win2k and the hidden restore partition is still intact. Would like to be able to clone this in case anything bad happens, as it usually does.

I'm not too familiar with the capabilities of the Transnote so I had to download a copy of the HMM. Since the system only has a single USB 1.1 port, that's going to be a limitation on the transfer speed and the number of external drives you can connect (one). There's a port extender that's available (FRU 04P3687) that provides two USB ports. However, if you don't already have one it may be hard to locate. There's only one that I've found on eBay and it's in Australia.

My initial thought would be to remove the Transnote's hard drive and connect it to another computer / laptop and perform the clone operation there. This would require additional hardware such as USB hard drive case(s) or Ultrabay hard drive adapter, if using one of your other Thinkpads. As far as software is concerned, there's several options. I think most people around here choose to use Acronis. I hear that Clonezilla is also a good utility. Me, I'm still using a copy of Ghost 2003 (DOS). My cloning operations typically require a 3 spindle solution; hard drive in the TP, floppy drive for booting the Ghost diskette and an Ultrabay hard drive adapter.

Thanks, there isn't a lot of data on the drive, just the original install and the hidden partition. I don't have any external drives that will write cds and i don't have an adapter for the HDD I am obviously going to have to spend some money on a HDD adapter.

Because you own several ThinkPads, you also should own an USB CD ROM drive. An USB-IDE-HDD adapter also should be mandatory and is not expensive;)

Cloning the Transnote HDD:
The TransNote can also from a USB CD-ROM - boot drive. If you want to clone the hard disk with Acronis True Image Home this action requires the following steps:

• 192 MB of RAM is sufficient for the Acronis True Image Home 2011 rescue CD
• Target HDD installed in TransNote
• insert Acronis Rescue CD (for example, created on another PC) into the Transnote on attached USB CD-ROM drive.
• the source HDD connected to the USB HDD adapter, but do not connect the USB drive to the Transnote yet!
• Turn the TransNote and Acronis rescue CD to boot (if both USB CD-ROM and USB-HDD are connected at boot time, the computer will not boot)
• after the Acronis CD is booted, connect the USB HDD on TransNote
• After a short waiting period, the newly connected USB HDD recognized and can now be cloned
• Shut down the computer after the cloning process and disconnect USB drives

yes, i have usb devices coming out of my ears, but something i have never thought to buy is a usb -hdd adapter, and no doubt it would have to compatible with the 2.5" because naturally the one i have for a 3.5" doesn't do the trick. Never used clone software before, something else i have to get. Naturally this would have to be compatible with win2k.

What will it all be like in another 10 years time.

The cloning-software does not need to be compatible with Win2k, because you can boot it from USB-CD ROM.

The finest Tool is Acronis True Image. It even is free for owners of Western Digital HDDs, which must be attached to run the program.
http://support.wdc.com/product/download ... dc_lang=en
Install it on a Computer with XP or higher and create the emergency-CD.
With this CD you can boot your Transnote from USB-CD.

Concerning your HDD adapter:
If it is a 3.5" USB-HDD-adapter, you additionally can purchase an adapter 3.5" to 2.5" and connect it.

perfect. will try that. i remember now that i actually downloaded it some time ago.