Hard Drive Swap

[thomase13]

I have recently noticed that the hard drive in my beloved ThinkPad is getting quite full. (13GB of 144GB free)
This is fine for now, but I am thinking that it might be a good idea to be foward-thinking, and upgrade to something larger.

This is my question: If all of the files, including system files are simply moved from the old drive to the new one, can the drives simply be swapped, and things continue to work as they always have, without having to re-install anything?
I've never heard of this, but I don't see why it shouldn't work!

I'm running Windows XP on my T60p.

Thanks,
Thomas

[GomJabbar]

That's what cloning software is for. Clone your old hard drive to the larger new hard drive. Either one should work fine. Just don't connect both hard drives simultaneously in the computer and boot Windows. Windows doesn't behave well when it sees an identical version of itself. In fact, it doesn't always behave well when there are two different versions of Windows installed!

Clonezilla is free to download and burn to a CD. There are a number of other cloning software alternatives available as well. Just boot the cloning CD (or DVD) with both hard drives plugged into the computer (either internally or externally). Follow the onscreen instuctions of the cloning software. A second computer with internet available is good for finding answers to questions that may come up (search via Google or another search engine).

[thomase13]

Wow, I had no idea that hard drive cloning was a thing!

Thanks so much!!!

Thomas