Restoring Image from External Hard Drive

[SNoWyV82]

I just got a Dell Inspiron 600m and I upgraded the HD to a Hitachi 7k60 right away. I put the old HD in a USB 2.0 enclosure and it still has the complete OS on it, I haven't even touched it since I took it out of the computer. Now, I want to partition the 7K60 into C and D and then take everything that is on my HD in the USB 2.0 enclosure and put it on drive C of my 7K60. Then I should have a Windows install on my 7K60 that is exactly the same as the one that came with my computer. Now the question: What is the easiest way to do this (ie: any software, etc)?? Can it be done for free or will I need to pay for software? I assume that the software needs to support USB since it will be copying from my USB HD to my internal HD. I desperately need this to be done, so any suggestions would be nice. Thanks for the help!

 

[DaveSimmons]

Acronis Partition Expert can probably do this, or Ghost if you have a floppy drive for the laptop, but both cost money. There is some linux partition tool (mentioned in the Software forum) but I don't recall if it supports copying XP NTFS partitions.

 

[SNoWyV82]

Yeah, problem is that I don't have a floppy. Otherwise I would have just used Ghost. Thanks for the reply though, any other suggestions?

 

[SNoWyV82]

UPDATE: I put my old HD in my laptop and my new one in the USB Enclosure. Now I just need a program that can do disk to disk exact copies. I tried Casper XP 2.0 which can be found at download.com and it says it copied the disk entirely but the drive in the USB enclosure has 4.78GB used and the original drive has 6.31GB used. This means that something is obviously not getting copied over, and thus the system tells me that I don't have a bootable drive when I put my new HD back in my computer. Is there another program that will allow me to do a disk to disk exact copy that actually works??

 

[DaveSimmons]

This is where spending $49 for Acronis Partition Expert pays for itself, in time and effort saved. You'd install it to your desktop, have it burn you a bootable CD, use that with the laptop, and be done.

But since you're looking for something free, just treat this as a bump.

 

[LanFear]

If you just got a brand new dell, you probably have a 90 day trial on your antivirus. Hit the local staples, office depot, whatever and pick up a copy of Norton Systemworks 2004, it comes with Ghost.

 

[LanFear]

Better yet, if you have an oem shop in your area, you can just get the disc with no retaill boxing/manual and save some cash.