New hard drive

[sneakyazn]

I just purchased the hitachi 80gb 5400rpm drive to put into my x31. I have a couple of questions:

*I have:
- a Que! firewire cdrw (can X31 boot off firewire even?)
- laptop drive to normal drive adapter along with a desktop computer
- 128mb jump drive

1. Is it possible to copy the hidden partition over to the new 80gb drive without having getting the recovery discs from IBM? (i dont want to shell out another 30 bucks )

2. What options do i have for copying the drive over? (hidden partition as well as normal) I was looking at Acronis, but do I have to buy it to be able to do what I am trying to do?

3. Could I do a system restore then use some sort of program to copy the image to my desktop's drive, then plug in my new laptop drive into my desktop and move it over there? (using my laptop drive to ide adapter)

Thanks in advance for any creative ideas that you guys can help me out with.[/quote]

[selvan777]

If your BIOS has the option to select firewire for a boot device than I don't see why you could not boot from it.

Regardless, I'd invest in Acronis True Image (it will copy the hidden partition) and create an image(s) to CD's or DVD's or directly to the new drive if you can plug it into the notebook by any means while leaving the original in place. If you create CD's or DVD's, when done, swap the old for the new drive and restore the image(s).

Your question 3. You're basically asking if you could copy the drive in your notebook to your desktop then transfer it to the new drive. Sure you could but why bother, you'll still need a utility like Acronis.

There are many free utilitiesout there but I have not tried any.