[SOLVED] Upgrading Hard Drive for the 1st time

A couple of days ago, during the TechNet discussion, I decided it is for me, and I plan to have it in late May, plenty of time before the discount runs out (the $260 something plan). I decided I needed more space, and with a great suggestion from Nibiru, I bought a WD Caviar Black 750GB drive, a huge upgrade from 320GB. I've reinstalled the OS that I have, to shed some weight prior to upgrading. I'm creating 3 backups, one from the Seagate backup software (slow), one from Macrium, two from the default Windows 7 backup (one complete backup, one complete disc image). If I'm missing one, please let me know. Draceena explained to me that my new SATA drive will plug right into where the other one does, so swapping should be no problem. Now, comes the tricky part, where I need some help. Which way would be best to load my files on the new drive, once it's in place? I've read disc images are best, but with no experience, I don't know. I'm not afraid to do the swap, but I don't know the easiest (& best) way to restore my files on the new drive. I burned the "rescue CD" from Macrium, I'll burn the Windows one too, after I create the backup & disc image. I want to have a plan in place by Wednesday, when the drive should be here. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, however being a rookie at this, please keep it as simple as possible.

Cat you don't need all those backups. You only need one good full image backup of your entire drive. It would be so much easier if you could connect both drives to the board, even if they wouldn't both mount. Once you are finished transferring all your files the second drive could then be disconnected to close the AIO case. However I don't know if you would have a second SATA port.

I have read enough of your post to know that the recovery partition is one of the items you will want to keep. It might be best if you only restored this recovery partition and then did a system recovery from this partition.

I know this will involve reinstalling all your programs. Changing a hard drive is one of the best times to do a system cleanup. I know I wouldn't want to install a new drive without having a fresh system.

Thanks Clifford, I did a recovery yesterday to clean up my system. But I didn't know that I could simply restore my recovery partition, and allow it to do the rest. I'll go in that direction, because it will format the drive for me (it's a "raw" drive), I guess that means that it's unformatted. But I don't mind reinstalling my programs manually, I don't have that many, and the latest versions can be downloaded & installed. That's what I did yesterday, although I only installed a few of them. I doubt that with this desktop that I have a second SATA port, being that it's a budget model desktop. I do have a full disc image created by the Windows backup, and one by Macrium, along with rescue CD's for both. The backup program that came with my external drive is not worth crap, there was a long list of items that couldn't be backed up. So I doubt I'll ever use that one again. But the drive itself is fine, it has an option to sleep, or go on low power after 10 minutes. I do believe you have a great idea, loading from the recovery partition. I'll create a separate backup of that partition, I can load that on my small drive. But how do I get it on my new drive? I've recovered several partitions before, but they were already in place.

Use your bootable backup media with the images you need on the external harddrive and the new drive connected to your system. I would not do anything to the original drive until you are successful with the transfer.

I'm not going to do anything with the drive, except save it "just in case" I need it down the road. The external drive that I bought will be enough for this computer. When you said "bootable backup media", are you speaking of the CD that the program asked me to create at the end of the backup?

The bootable program that creates the backup and recovers the image that was created is what I was referring too. Use the bootable media and then you can recover the image of your Recovery Partition. I assumed the backup image was on your external. Boot using the backup program and then navigate to the image where ever it may be located.

This should also write to the Master Boot Record(MBR) on the drive which holds the code needed for the function key to start the recovery process. Once you have written the Recovery Partition and the MBR, you should be able to boot to the drive press the function key and start the recovery process. If not, something has gone wrong.

OK, the easy part is done, I've removed the drive. No, there's not a second plug at all, and if there was, there would be no way to get both drives in there. Hopefully, this is going to work out for me, one way or the other. I did create a backup of the recovery partition separately, one on my portable drive, and one on the large one. It must be a coincidence, the drive coming out is a Caviar too, a Blue one. That was a very tight fit, no cords, it just slides into the grooves, similar to RAM sticks. It would be nice to be able to use this laptop to jump start everything. I have the shortcut on it, too. I know one thing, this old laptop has many different plugins, 4 USB, 3 of those you plug and screw it down, a S video. My desktop, all it has are USB sockets and a card reader. I guess you pay big, if you want a lot of connections. I just checked awhile ago, the drive is on the truck for destination, and UPS runs early here. I just want this to be done with.

Good luck with your new HDD Cat (your in good hands with C_C) I'm sure all will run smooth

It wasn't easy, but I got the job done. I got the recovery partition installed, tried to boot from it, but couldn't. So, I decided to load a Windows 7 install on it, I did, it updated & all, then I downloaded Macrium to see what I could do. A big mess. Finally, I remembered about those recovery discs that I created, they saved the day. From there, everything went perfect. I know there's some on here that has no use for these partitions & discs, but for me, they always come through. Clifford, thanks for the help, it's can be kind of hard to walk someone through this, but I did get the recovery partition restored, that helps a lot, but for whatever reason, I couldn't boot from it. Anyway, this drive must be faster than the other, it doesn't download faster, but switches web pages faster, and the computer is more responsive. I don't think I did bad, for a rookie install. Another reason for all of the new computer buyers here, make your recovery discs, you'll never know when you need them.

I'm happy for you. I still have problems at times getting things working.

A boot menu should give you access to the partition also. I know you are used to using boot menu's.