Upgrading laptop's HDD via desktop's IDE channels + IDE adapter connectors

[Knack]

My WinXP Pro laptop contains only one HDD that has begun clicking and
doesn't always boot. It must be replaced ASAP. It is an emergency and I may
only get one shot at success. That laptop has only a USB 1.0 port which is
too slow to be worth obtaining an external HDD for. I looked at USB2 PCMCIA
adapters and they were also still too slow for external HDD use.

I have a Win2000 desktop computer. So I obtained a pair of laptop-to-IDE
cable adapters and would like to use the desktop PC and Ghost 2003 to do a
disk-to-disk cloning of one laptop HDD to the other laptop HDD.

1) The laptop HDDs have no jumpers for master/slave. How do I get the
desktop PC's BIOS to detect them properly?

2) Should both laptop HDDs be connected on the same IDE channel or on
different channels as slaves?

3) I have a bootable CD drive. Can Ghost be run from CD, or only from floppy
diskette?

4) Any other considerations or cautions with regards to the technique of
cloning the laptop drive via a desktop PC?

 

[Rod Speed]

My WinXP Pro laptop contains only one HDD that has begun clicking and
doesn't always boot. It must be replaced ASAP. It is an emergency and
I may only get one shot at success. That laptop has only a USB 1.0
port which is too slow to be worth obtaining an external HDD for. I
looked at USB2 PCMCIA adapters and they were also still too slow for
external HDD use.

I have a Win2000 desktop computer. So I obtained a pair of
laptop-to-IDE cable adapters and would like to use the desktop
PC and Ghost 2003 to do a disk-to-disk cloning of one laptop
HDD to the other laptop HDD.

You didnt actually need a pair, you could have made an image
file from the original drive and restored that to the new one.

Just be careful you dont clone backwards,
from the new drive onto the original drive.

1) The laptop HDDs have no jumpers for master/slave.

That is just plain wrong. Most of them (maybe all)
do in fact have the usual jumpers.

How do I get the desktop PC's BIOS to detect them properly?

In the usual way, jumper them as appropriate.

If there are no jumpers, just have the drive
as the only drive on the ribbon cable.

2) Should both laptop HDDs be connected on the
same IDE channel or on different channels as slaves?

Its theoretically better to have them on separate ribbon
cables just because thats in theory faster. In practice there
isnt much in that and it doesnt matter in your situation.

3) I have a bootable CD drive. Can Ghost be run from CD,

Yes, tho it isnt immediately obvious how to create one of those.

You just need to create an image to CD. Doesnt matter if it
will fit, just abort the image creation at the end of the first CD.
That CD will be bootable and you can do any ops you want
from the CD just like you would using the floppy.

or only from floppy diskette?
Nope.

4) Any other considerations or cautions with regards to the
technique of cloning the laptop drive via a desktop PC?

Just be very careful to clone the old drive to the new one
and not the reverse. You only get one chance at that.

It can get a bit tricky cloning some laptop hard
drives which have maintenance partitions etc.

Simplest approach is to tell Ghost to clone by sector
using the appropriate switch and see if the new one
boots fine. If it doesnt, say what the laptop is.

 

[Andrew]

: My WinXP Pro laptop contains only one HDD that has begun clicking and
: doesn't always boot. It must be replaced ASAP. It is an emergency and I may
: only get one shot at success. That laptop has only a USB 1.0 port which is
: too slow to be worth obtaining an external HDD for. I looked at USB2 PCMCIA
: adapters and they were also still too slow for external HDD use.

Not true - I used a USB2 Cardbus (PCMCIA is depreciated terminology)
adaptor with my old laptop which had only USB1.1 native and it was
plenty fast enough to use my external hard drives. I'll bet almost
any USB2 adaptor you pick would have worked...

: I have a Win2000 desktop computer. So I obtained a pair of laptop-to-IDE
: cable adapters and would like to use the desktop PC and Ghost 2003 to do a
: disk-to-disk cloning of one laptop HDD to the other laptop HDD.

: 1) The laptop HDDs have no jumpers for master/slave. How do I get the
: desktop PC's BIOS to detect them properly?

: 2) Should both laptop HDDs be connected on the same IDE channel or on
: different channels as slaves?

: 3) I have a bootable CD drive. Can Ghost be run from CD, or only from floppy
: diskette?

I use True Image from Acronis instead of Ghost, and True Image has the
ability to make a rescue CD that you can boot. I'd be surprised if
Ghost doesn't have the same ability. But if you can do that, you can
just unplug your desktop hard drive, put each laptop HD on a separate
IDE channel, make the CD the slave (the two laptop HDs are probably
masters by default), and boot the CD. If you see all three drives
properly detected by the BIOS when you boot, you should be home free.

Andrew
--
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----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
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[Knack]

OK, on the laptop HDDs I do see extra (Jumper?) pins, but there are no
jumpers on them, and there is no jumper connection diagram labeled on either
of those HDDs. So I guess I will just put each on a separate IDE channel
with no other drives attached. I'll use a DOS boot diskette followed by
Ghost diskette.

You didnt actually need a pair, you could have made an image
file from the original drive and restored that to the new one.

It's my understanding that a disk-to-disk cloning proceeds much faster than
a disk-to-image oiperation. Speed is of the essence with this very "iffy"
old HDD...

It can get a bit tricky cloning some laptop hard
drives which have maintenance partitions etc.

The failing HDD does in fact have a dual boot partitionn on it for disaster
recovery purposes. It also has other partitions. I suppose that a
disk-to-disk cloning is not troubled by such complications that might be
presented to an imaging operation.

 

[Rod Speed]

OK, on the laptop HDDs I do see extra (Jumper?) pins,
but there are no jumpers on them,

Thats normal, quite a few of them default to master in that config.

and there is no jumper connection diagram
labeled on either of those HDDs.

You can get the jumpering off the hard drive manufacturer's web site.

So I guess I will just put each on a separate
IDE channel with no other drives attached.

That might get tricky if you want to boot from a
CD too, tho it would probably work fine if the CD
is jumpered slave and they usually default to that.

I'll use a DOS boot diskette followed by Ghost diskette.

Yeah, that works fine, I thought you might not
have had a floppy drive in that PC or something.

It's my understanding that a disk-to-disk cloning
proceeds much faster than a disk-to-image oiperation.
Yes.

Speed is of the essence with this very "iffy" old HDD...

You could try a forensic clone if ghost
cant do it because the drive is too bad.

The failing HDD does in fact have a dual boot partitionn on it
for disaster recovery purposes. It also has other partitions.

Thats not necessarily a problem with a clone of the drive,
particularly if the old and new drive are the same size.

I suppose that a disk-to-disk cloning is not troubled by such
complications that might be presented to an imaging operation.

They can be, most obviously when the two drives
arent the same size or not the same geometry.

 

[Barry Watzman]

1. Don't connect both (old and new) hard drive at once. Backup the
failing laptop hard drive to the desktop's hard drive, either as simple
file copies (won't be bootable, but will save your critical data in it's
native (most useable) form), or as an image file that can be restored to
the new replacement drive (or both, if the drive will last long enough).
Note: many drive failures will make an image backup impossible but
will still allow access to individual files that are not damaged.

2. Put the laptop drive on an IDE channel by itself. To do this,
temporarily disconnect all devices from the desktop's secondary IDE channel.

3. The laptop drive does have master-slave jumpers. They are on the
back near the laptop IDE connector, as 4 additional pins. However their
use is not standardized. Go to the drive mfgrs web site and download
the drive data sheet.

Ghost may not be the best program to use. If you restore an image with
Ghost, Ghost must be installed on the destination computer or it will
stop working.

 

[Rod Speed]

1. Don't connect both (old and new) hard drive at once. Backup the failing laptop hard
drive to the desktop's hard drive, either as simple file copies (won't be bootable, but
will save your critical data in it's native (most useable) form), or as an image file
that can be restored to the new replacement drive (or both, if the drive will last long
enough).

That approach has real downsides with a drive that
is dying. It takes longer than a clone of the drive,
and can see the drive die before the copy is done.

Best to clone using a forensic cloner
that wont stop on a problem too.

Note: many drive failures will make an image backup impossible but will still allow
access to individual files that are not damaged.

Yes, but its better to automate that with a forensic cloner because
that should maximise what can be got from the drive if its dying.

2. Put the laptop drive on an IDE channel by itself. To do this, temporarily
disconnect all devices from the desktop's secondary IDE channel.

3. The laptop drive does have master-slave jumpers. They are on the back near the
laptop IDE connector, as 4 additional pins. However their use is not standardized. Go
to the drive mfgrs web site and download the drive data sheet.

Ghost may not be the best program to use.

Correct, but not for the reason you mention.

If you restore an image with Ghost, Ghost must be installed on the destination computer
or it will stop working.

Wrong with the Ghost 2003 he is planning to use or ghost32.exe
Those arent ideal tho with a drive that is dying, tho usable if you
do a sector copy and tell it to ignore errors. That wont be successful
tho if the drive keeps stopping during the clone since you'll have to
keep restarting the clone.