Broke my work laptop

the hdd is done, wont recognize it in 3 laptops i tried, but i do have another, what i need is a guide to make an exact copy of one hdd to the next.

i can borrow someone else's laptop from work. would i just burn it to a disk using a program or connect the two and copy? no idea the process so any help is really appriciated.

 

I'll guess we're talking about some version of Windows.

You can use a program like Norton Ghost to clone a HDD but it would need to be a nearly identical computer or the OS will refuse to boot.

 

Its an identicle laptop, both HP Probook6555b

 

If it is not seeing the drive, you need to format it. Look on the drives maker's website to download tools for the drive. Once the drive is recognized, I would use XX Clone, or as shnrerdly said, Ghost. With XX Cone, you copy the drive, make it bootable, and it should work.

A Windows disk should format it as well.

 

I think mirack has several identical laptops. One has a completely dead HD. So he wants to clone a working HD from an identical laptop to a new empty HD and place the clone in the dead laptop.

ToDo backup (free) will clone the HDs. It is making the connections that will be the trick.

Something like this adapter would let you connect the second HD to USB port of the working laptop during the clone process.

I'm not familiar with connecting two laptops directly.

~Does anyone know if that is possible?

 

XX Clone will clone a drive via USB. Clone it, make it bootable (using XX Clone) then toss it in the offending laptop, and it should boot. Now, one problem. Windows Activation. But, if the offending laptop has a viable Win code, I would think a phone call to the mother ship would solve the problem.

 

I've only used Todo once for testing purposes so I am no expert on cloning(I used it for cloning--you will use it for backup and restore). The advantage it has for a free software is that it will let you burn a bootable recovery disc that can be used to boot the laptop with the bad/new HD. Most free backup software won't let you make a bootable CD.

The process of backing up an entire HD is slow depending on size of the drive. Sector by sector is slowest because it copies empty space as well as used space. I'm fairly sure it should work to backup one HD and then write the image back to a different hard drive. It would seem that such needs would be a major reason people by such software. All I can suggest is that you try it.

So install Todo on working computer and burn the bootable disc to a blank CD.
Then you could boot your co-workers laptop with the Todo disc (have the external USB plugged in).
You would use Backup and Recovery to backup the entire disc to a file on the 1.5tb external. [You are not cloning because that goes from HD to HD. You are backing up the entire disc and then restoring.]
So you Select the Source drive as the laptop's disk (probably only has a Disk1 but be careful and pay attention to what you are copying)
Select a folder on the external USB drive for the backup file.
When complete plug the external into your laptop and boot from the CD and use the recovery option to write the file from the USB external to the new HD in your laptop.
Eject the Cd and try to boot from HD.

The two underlined words (above) in this post are links to screenshots for a step by step on backing up and restoring. This is how I would attempt the task.

 

Thx a million man, took my new 500gb laptop hdd, put it in the external hdd inclosure and ran XX Clone, copying file for file on new hdd for the other laptop.

Only problem now, is the guy who lent me the external hdd, had 600gb worth of stuff on there, and before i put my new 500gb in I tried it with his 1.5tb and well I bet you can guess what happened to it.....

 

You could give this a shot. If it finds some of his old files you have to copy them to a different HD so as not to overwrite the other files you are trying to recover. (If your work laptop only had a relatively small HD some of his files should be recoverable.)