Other Norton Products

[avian600f4]

Hi all,

I just joined this forum.  I have been using Norton products for at least 15 years.  I have an HP dv4 2160us (Windows 7) with a 250 GB SATA hard drive.  I need to replace it with a larger drive.  I bought a 1 TB WD Scorpio Blue 2.5 inch internal drive, an external case and Norton Ghost 15.  I have connected the new hard drive to the notebook via the external case with a usb connector.  I initially had problems seeing the drive, but called WD Customer Service and we formated the drive so I can now see it.  I have installed Ghost.  I see the copy drive feature.  I think this is what I should be using.  I also see it has a number of options that I could select, i.e. make active drive, copy MBR.  I'm not sure which ones to select.  I ultimately plan to take out my 250 GB drive and replace it with the exact copy I make on the 1 TB drive ( which of course has to be bootable and have all the same info as my 250 GB drive).  I would like to keep the integrity of the 250 GB drive so in case I have problems, I can put it back in as a last resort.  Can someone please advise me on the next steps to replace my drive using Norton Ghost?  Thank you so much in advance for your help!

[redk9258]

I doubt it will work copying across USB. The destination drive needs to be in it's final resting place, hooked to the motherboard, or the drive will not be seen in the correct geometry. You are better off doing a cold backup to an external USB or eSATA drive then restore the image to the new harddrive that is in it's final resting place.

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-15-options-for-recovery/m-p/218202#M21280

[DaveH]

It definatly won't work.  HP laptops use 240 head alignment for the hard drives and external USB cases use the more common 255 head alignment.

Since you can't have 2 hard drives attached to your motherboard at the same time you have no choice but to create images of the old drive and then restore them onto the new drive while it is attached and controlled by the motherboard and system BIOS.

dave

[avian600f4]

Thank you DaveH and redk9258 for your quick responses.  I have used Norton antivirus and utility products for many years but I am not familiar with Norton Ghost.  Let me see if I can describe the correct procedure based on your comments. 

1.  Connect an external drive via USB

2.  Use  the "One Time Backup" command in Ghost to run a backup of my entire hard drive to the external drive

3.  Make a Symantec Recovery Disk (I assume it has a copy of Norton Ghost on it)

4.  Insert the recovery disk in the dvd drive

5.  Insert the new 1 TB drive into the notebook

6.  Keep the external drive with the backup connected to the notebook

7.  Boot the notebook from the Symantec Recovery Disk

8.  Use the "Recover my Computer" command to copy the backup from the external drive to the new 1TB drive in the notebook

Does this process seem like it would work?  Thanks again for your help!

[redk9258]

The SRD - Symantec Recovery Disc is the install disc that Ghost comes on. You can do a cold backup if you do not want to install Ghost. It is run from the SRD.

You may want to post a screenshot of your Disk Management so we can see if there are any traps. Do do this Click Start > Run > Type 'diskmgmt.msc' [enter]. Size the window so you can see the partitions. Hit ALT-Prnt Scrn together. Open MS Paint and paste the image. Now save the image to your desktop as a PNG or JPG file. You can attach it to a post here by clicking the button.

[avian600f4]

Thank you redk9258.  I have already installed Ghost.  The screen print showing my drives is attached.

[redk9258]

You need to image at least the first two partitions, but I would do all 4. You will need to recover into unallocated space to get the option to resize the partition that is your C drive. See THIS POST on how to do that. Or you could boot the SRD and use DiskPart to partition the drive. This is probably what I would do. The System partition contains the boot files and is the active partition. Do you want the Recovery and HP Tools partitions on your new drive?