Typically, both laptop and desktop systems use SATA or ATA interface disk drives. Desktop computers can contain several disk drives making it a straightforward task to migrate data to a new drive. Unlike desktop systems, laptop computer systems can hold only one internal drive at a time, which creates a special challenge when copying the operating system and files to a new drive.
Because of the difficulty, Seagate recommends that trained computer service technicians handle laptop hard drive upgrades that involve the transfer of existing data. Make sure that you are satisfied with your back ups before proceeding.
For those people who are up for the challenge, the following guidelines can provide an overview.
- Acquire a USB hard drive enclosure case for a 2.5" disk drive. The enclosure will hold the new disk drive during the data migration procedure and then, later, provide a case for the original laptop drive if it is still viable. Make sure to match the interface type to SATA or regular ATA (also called IDE or PATA). There are many USB hard drive enclosures available. Some are better built than others. Some provide power and activity LED's, power supplies, on off switches and various cables in the kits. Some are just inexpensive USB to hard drive adapters that do not have a case enclosure at all. Use your favorite search engine with "USB hard drive enclosure" to browse some of the many choices available. Seagate does not recommend any specific USB product for this project.
- Download and install DiscWizard.
- Choose the Clone Disk option and select the USB-hard drive as the destination. See Document ID: 007717 for more details.
- At the conclusion of the file copying process, follow the instructions to completely shut down the computer.
- Using the documentation for your laptop computer, follow the manufacturer's instructions for removing the original hard disk drive.
- Disconnect the new disk drive from the USB enclosure and install it into your computer.
- Once the new drive has been installed as the primary drive, power on your laptop computer. Verify that the Windows operating system boots correctly, that you can access all your applications, and that your data is available. Once you have done this, you can connect your original drive to the USB-hard drive enclosure which you can then use as additional storage if you so choose.
