Easiest way to clone laptop hard drive and swap out

mikeynavy1976

Distinguished
Feb 14, 2007
90
0
18,590
I've swapped out hard drives on a desktop several times because it is easy to simply hook up the new drive, tell image software to clone to it and then swap cables. I'm now interested in swapping out my laptop hard drive but with one bay/connection I want to see what the easiest is. Is there a better way than:

-Copying the drive to an external hard drive using image software
-Replace the hard drive and then boot from image software boot CD
-Choose external drive as source and blank drive as destination and image.
-Restart computer and be good to go

Thanks.
 

secolliyn

Distinguished
May 3, 2006
37
0
18,590
look on the net for Gparted

Take the hard drive out put it into an external enclosure and take the new drive and do the same hook them both up to a desktop and load up G-parted (it's a boot-able you will not be in windows for this) and tell g-parted what to to it does it and then out the new hard drive back in the laptop and now you have awapped the hard drive
 

nordlead

Distinguished
Aug 3, 2011
27
0
18,590
I haven't tried it myself, but you should be able to

- put old HDD in enclosure
- put new HDD in laptop
- clone from external to internal via software like gparted or clonezilla booted from USB stick.