Cloning a T43 Hard Drive

[losmeme]

Hello All;

I have a T43 (1875-D6U) that belongs to work. Unfortunately, we hire idiots in the IT department, and their mirror bogs this machine down to the point of it not being functional for me. I do not have administrator rights on this machine, and won't get it from the IT people.

I have purchased a 2nd 40GB HDD, and would like to clone the ENTIRE drive, (backup/restore partition as well.) insert it into the laptop, and then use Rescue & Recovery to restore the drive to factory specs, with a re-install of windows. (This allows me to keep the junk drive ready to re-install, if need be.)

Has anyone tried this? Is this doable with something like Ghost? There are no passwords set outside of windows on the machine, so I don't see any roadblocks there.

Thanks for the input!

[EOMtp]

What you are planning sounds like the hard way to me! Please read your private messages. Best regards.

[losmeme]

Hey;

Thanks for the messages, I need to keep the original HDD intact, in case I ever have to turn the machine in, etc.

Another reason for upgrade is that I have ordered a 7200RPM drive to replace a 4200RPM drive. Can't wait to experience what kind of boost I'll get.

I know HDDs can be cloned, but was not sure if the service partition would copy over as well, or if there were any issues I needed to be aware of. I see the other posts, but they don't specifically mention the service partition.

[EOMtp]

The service partition will clone along with any other partition(s). There is nothing special about the service partition: it is a stand-alone partition which follows the other partition(s).

Using the 7200RPM drive instead of the 4200RPM drive is the single most dramatic speed booster. You will not be disappointed.

[Kyocera]

read the hard drive clone faq, click on my sig