Thinkpads Forum

ok guys my thinkpad 600e currently has its 6GB HD loaded with windows 2000, windows 2000 which someone else loaded on before the sale and which i dont have a CD copy. But now ive got a new 30GB HD and i want to know whether I can just literally make a total copy of my old disk to the new one and everything would still work? I could use one of my desktops to mediate the transfer, but all i need to know is whether the OS will work on the new drive, eg, will it recognise I have a 30GB HD or still think ive got the 6GB one?

any help would be massivly appreciated

You can use Acronis True Image or Ghost or some other cloning software to transfer the OS to the new drive but you can not do it in a desktop computer. You will need to get an ultrabay HD adapter or an external USB HD adapter.
If you could get a set of recovery cd's you could install that way too.

You most certainly CAN use a desktop, with very little work.

Get one of these:

http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?c ... adaptor%29


(actually, you'll probably need two--they're cheap)

Temporarily pull loose the two IDE cables in your desktop, and replace them with these adaptors, carefully hooked to your laptop drives.

Get a copy of Ghost or some other cloning software. I use Ghost 2003 here, because it's new enough that it will handle XP, but does NOT have to be activated. Also, it can be run from DOS. That's right. DOS--a boot floppy, or a bootable CD.

Another way you could do this, by only buying ONE of these inexpensive little adaptors, would be to make an "image" of your first drive, and store it on your desktop drive--it will have to be a "FAT32" drive--and then swap the laptop drives, and dump the image back into the second drive.

This really isn't as hard as it sounds.

Also, the second hard drive bays for that Thinkpad, which replace the CDROM, are cheap and easy to get on eFray.

Here's one FOR EXAMPLE ONLY. I don't know or endorse this seller, one way or the other:

http://cgi.ebay.com/IBM-ThinkPad-600-60 ... dZViewItem

440roadrunner wrote:You most certainly CAN use a desktop, with very little work.

My experience has been different, my 560X (admittedly an older machine) gagged on drives formatted and/or imaged in a desktop. It is true that what I was doing was a little different than what you describe in that I was restoring a full drive image instead of doing a direct clone, so that might affect the outcome.

However, there have been several extended threads about people who were having tremendous difficulty cloning drives in more recent Thinkpad model, in which the problem appeared to be that the cloning was done outside the Thinkpad. Once the cloning was done from the TP itself, no problems.

As with all things, YMMV, but I think the OP would be well advised to take the prudent course and do the cloning from the Thinkpad platform.

I used Ghost to do the same thing, only I installed from my old hard drive to the new directly. I bought one of the 2.5" USB hard drive cases and "ghosted" the old HD to the new. Then I swapped the drives. So now I have a handy 5GB USB hard drive that's perfect for swapping large files (or collections of files) from one computer to another. The 2.5" enclosures are under $20 with a cable, and don't need a power adapter -- they pull power directly from the USB port. Gives a great use for the old drive!

I was just researching the ghost option, and im not liking the price tag! are there any freeware alternatives out there that owuld let me do a straight copy of my HD to the new one? I also have another question, do I need to upgrade the bios in order to use my 30GB hard drive? cheers!

You don't HAVE to buy the latest version of Ghost. If you deal on eFray, take your time, and look for, say Ghost 2003. Take your time and MAKE SURE it is a boxed, new, unused copy.

Here's the thing. At some point--I'm not sure of the version, Norton Ghost must be activated, just like X tra P utrid.

Ghost 2003 does NOT need activation, but it is a new enough version that it will handle anything up through XP. I've not used it, but apparrently it will handle Linux, as well as older DOS, Windows 9x, ME, and W2K

I've got two copies of 2003, and paid about 25.00 to my door on eFray.

My old copy, Ghost 2001, does not seem to support XP


On freeware, someone recently posted this:


http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/index.htm

which I haven't tried.

So far as I'm concerned, my older version of Ghost is some of the best money I've every spent.

Legend66 wrote:I was just researching the ghost option, and im not liking the price tag! are there any freeware alternatives out there that owuld let me do a straight copy of my HD to the new one? I also have another question, do I need to upgrade the bios in order to use my 30GB hard drive? cheers!

BootItNG will do it for you. 30 day free trial:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

That looks prety nice. I look forward to the reviews here.
Right now i have Acronis and I am done with it for now, but if BootItNG is good I would switch.

Hi there again, just posting that i ended up using a free trial of acronis. except in the end I didnt need to clone my Win2k drive, as my purchased one has XP pro already installed!!!!:) But I did use the program to write a disk image to my desktop over the wireless network, worked fantastically! took about an hour (11mbps card) with no compression. simple to use. unfortunatly i didnt get the chance to use some of the optionsmentioned here, so mabye someone else can give them a try.

btw XP pro works great on my 600E!

I too found that XP-Pro works great on a 600E. It takes a little longer to boot than Win98SE, but runs much faster once booted.