Laptop hard drive question

[TemjinGold]

Hey guys, I have a Lenovo T61 with a 60 gb HD. When I specced it initially, I had no idea that:

1) They would partition away ~10 gigs of it to store the Vista Ultimate OEM image as well as their other recovery junk/tools/etc. that I never use.

2) I would not receive CDs for my Vista. (wouldn't have paid for Ultimate if I knew)

Anyway, I was considering buyng a much bigger notebook HD to replace this dinky drive as I barely have a gig of space left. My question is: Is there any way to somehow "extract" the Vista Ultimate install from this HD for use with the new one so that I wouldn't have to buy Vista again (after all, I did pay for this one)? Does anyone know if drivers would be an issue after the fact (a quick look at Add/Remove programs shows quite a few "special looking" drivers in the list)?

Even if there's something as simple as a way to wipe the drive and undo the partition without losing my Vista, I would be interested in that.

Thanks!

 

[zetsway]

This is the most hardest question I've ever read hear so far.

If you want to experiment:

The only way I could think of doing it would be to clone the drive by using either ghost or clonezilla.

I would think that if you did it that way it is possible to put the entire image on the new drive.

 

[TemjinGold]

Would that work even if the two drives were different sizes (the new one would obviously be bigger)? That does sound like a great solution, I've just never done anything like that before I any more info would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Fardringle]

If you have a way to connect both drives to the same computer (easiest is with an external USB enclosure) you can clone the old drive to the new one and it should work just fine. Some IBM laptops have been known to be very unhappy if the physical hard drive is changed, but I don't think your model has that feature/problem.

 

[zetsway]

Originally posted by: Fardringle
If you have a way to connect both drives to the same computer (easiest is with an external USB enclosure) you can clone the old drive to the new one and it should work just fine. Some IBM laptops have been known to be very unhappy if the physical hard drive is changed, but I don't think your model has that feature/problem.

That was one way I was thinking of.

 

[zetsway]

Originally posted by: TemjinGold
Would that work even if the two drives were different sizes (the new one would obviously be bigger)? That does sound like a great solution, I've just never done anything like that before I any more info would be appreciated. Thanks!

It should work. Do you need helping finding the tools to do it?

 

[Old Hippie]

Try here. If your going to buy, I always recommend Acronis

 

[TemjinGold]

Good stuff. Thanks for the help, guys!

 

[zetsway]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
Try here. If your going to buy, I always recommend Acronis

Thanks Old Hippie! I couldn't find the link.