Computers & Networking

[whatsyourprob94]

Hi,

I bought an HP Pavilion dv5-1015nr Entertainment laptop about a couple years ago and was wondering how I could go about upgrading my 300 GB internal hard drive to a higher capacity.  I already talked to a store employee who said that it was possible for a local store to transfer the files from my old hard drive to the new one.  But he mentioned something about needing a Recovery Disc to restore my OS, because apparently that can't be transferred.  I have a backup hard drive that is named HP_Recovery and it holds about 10 GB of memory and there is a file that says Recovery and it says it holds computer partitions and that I shouldn't delete it.

So my questions are:

1. Is it possible for you to transfer the hard drive information to a new one?

2. Can I actually buy a new internal hard drive and transfer everything myself?

3. Is the Recovery hard drive that I already have in my laptop what I need to restore my lost OS if I upgrade my hard drive? Or is the Recovery step even necessary? 

Thanks!

[RedWyv3 Best Buy Employee]

You'll need to create recovery discs that would replace the internal recovery partition. Once that is done, proceed with installation of the new drive. Do not format the old drive until you are certain the new one is working and set up properly.

A geek squad agent should be able to assist you with this proccess.

[Entropy]

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whatsyourprob94 wrote:

Hi,

I bought an HP Pavilion dv5-1015nr Entertainment laptop about a couple years ago and was wondering how I could go about upgrading my 300 GB internal hard drive to a higher capacity.  I already talked to a store employee who said that it was possible for a local store to transfer the files from my old hard drive to the new one.  But he mentioned something about needing a Recovery Disc to restore my OS, because apparently that can't be transferred.  I have a backup hard drive that is named HP_Recovery and it holds about 10 GB of memory and there is a file that says Recovery and it says it holds computer partitions and that I shouldn't delete it.

So my questions are:

1. Is it possible for you to transfer the hard drive information to a new one?

2. Can I actually buy a new internal hard drive and transfer everything myself?

3. Is the Recovery hard drive that I already have in my laptop what I need to restore my lost OS if I upgrade my hard drive? Or is the Recovery step even necessary? 

Thanks!

---

If you also purchase an external USB enclosure or dock, all three are possible.  There's software such as Norton Ghost (free alternatives do exist, although I'm not sure about ones that are easy to use for a nontechnical user) that can take the old hard drive and image it bit-for-bit to the new one, then resize the partitions to take advantage of the full drive.

Basic steps:

1)  Take old hard drive out, put new one in.

2)  Put old drive into a USB external enclosure or dock

3)  Use a solution like Ghost to image the new drive from the old

[TheLexMachine]

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whatsyourprob94 wrote:

Hi,

I bought an HP Pavilion dv5-1015nr Entertainment laptop about a couple years ago and was wondering how I could go about upgrading my 300 GB internal hard drive to a higher capacity.  I already talked to a store employee who said that it was possible for a local store to transfer the files from my old hard drive to the new one.  But he mentioned something about needing a Recovery Disc to restore my OS, because apparently that can't be transferred.  I have a backup hard drive that is named HP_Recovery and it holds about 10 GB of memory and there is a file that says Recovery and it says it holds computer partitions and that I shouldn't delete it.

So my questions are:

1. Is it possible for you to transfer the hard drive information to a new one?

2. Can I actually buy a new internal hard drive and transfer everything myself?

3. Is the Recovery hard drive that I already have in my laptop what I need to restore my lost OS if I upgrade my hard drive? Or is the Recovery step even necessary? 

Thanks!

---

1. You simply have to clone your HDD unless you want to use the recovery discs to have a fresh install. Cloning the drive will copy the data and partitons over to the new drive and it will work as if you were always using that drive. I've done it myself on many occasions. Windows doesn't so much as fart so long as you have not changed certain pieces of hardware.

2. Yes, you can. But you will need a desktop with two free SATA ports to do it as well as the appropriate software to clone the drive. Luckily, the software is free and you can get it from HDD manufacturers like Seagate.

3. The Recovery Partition on your HDD is what serves as your installation media unless you have made recovery discs. If your operating system gets hosed for some reason, not including hardware failure, the recovery partition is what allows you to simply reset the computer to it's factory condition. If you haven't made recovery discs, MAKE THEM NOW!!!!!!! Once you make recovery discs, you need to put them in a safe place. Since you have Windows Vista on this machine, you may want to consider upgrading to Windows 7 64-bit, and you should also upgrade the memory in addition to the HDD to get maximum performance from your notebook. It's a bit expensive but it's cheaper than buying a new notebook with the hardware features you already have.