V3000 HDD upgrade....Ideas?

Pretty Simple, I have a v3000 Compaq, runs great and i love it.

It has 1gig DC Ram, 1.8 Turion X2, And unfortunately, a 40 Gb HDD.

I would like to replace it with a larger HDD of the same speed, i have my eye on a 100gb samsung drive (SATA) and i would like to replace the disk keeping my current OS and files as they are.

Is it possible to use an adapter to fit my 40, create an image (on my desktop pc) and then write that image to the 100 and put back in the laptop? If so how would i go about doing so, and what kinda of adapter would i need? i was searching Newegg and found some enclosers that sad SATA but I am unsure if the laptop form factor comes into play on this.

Im not a 12:00 flasher, and I'm pretty sure this can be done, i am just looking for some advice on what to get. So if anyone could suggest an easier method It would be greatly appreciated

 

NortonGhost uses images of your HDD . . but it costs and I personally dont like Norton's products, but is only thing Ive heard of that does HDD images.

 

Hi,the easiest hard drive cloner to use is ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE 9.0-----i recently added a 2nd hard drive to my pc and used acronis to make an exact image of my original hard drive for backup purposes.It was easy to do and the cloned image to my new hard drive was perfect.

 

Sounds good, but does anyone know how i should go about doing this with my laptop?

 

http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/lahadr2.html

 

Just found this,

http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi-b...&kind=accessory&pos=0&type=itemid&itemid=a8.3

 

Im looking at this and by the looks of it its just Sata, i was under the impresion that laptop Sata and desktop sata were different. If this is the case, i could remove my drive and directly drop it into my desktop, do a image, copy it to a new drive and plug the new one into the drive. Would this work?

 

Thats the way it looks to me too, i wasnt sure the power lead was the same, looks the same to me, so yea, now hooking the laptop as a master wont work,the laptop hd will ,[i think] have to be the slave, copy a image to the desktop, then copy to the new hd, might need some help here if this wont work, TimW Asus, Ace, Help

 

I could always just take it out and try...Whats the worst that could happen .... fry it? render it useless? meh...