johnwhelan
Well-known member
No, no John, my internet computer is not refurbished, yet it still has a measly 250 watt power supply !!!!
And now, The NEWS ...
Reporting on my progress...
I plugged the 2TB backup drive in, followed the instructions, which was surprisingly easy using the Windows 7 disk management.
Formatted it to NTFS. Then used the backup feature of Windows 7. It just asks a few simple questions about what I wanted to include in the image. And where do I want to put it, DVDs or Drive E (the backup drive).
Surprising to me, (a little), was that it also copied the the HP Restore partition and the full OS partition.
What is a little unsettling is that Windows says the backup drive now has 1.72 TB free out of 1.81 TB. Maybe this is one of those Windows odd calculations.
Went to a computer repair shop and asked him how much it would cost to check that second used 1TB drive.. $25. To also reformat it clean..$10 dollars more.
Do all that and put the drive into the computer and restore the image? (He doesn't do images, he installs Windows, goes get the drivers for my computer). Along with a 500 GB hard drive (i think used) Errr...$189. I told him that is getting close to the cheapest new computer Walmart sells, $300.
Do I know how to screw in a hard drive and plug the cords into it, I think so? I saw "new" Seagate 1TB drives on EBAY ..New? $70.
It was hard for me to find 1TB (SATA 2 or 3) on Newegg. Newegg is tricky for me.
I'm not sure if the image can be installed onto different sized hard drives. I read that the Windows image is based on a file system method, maybe it skips all the empty sectors.
Over for now. Best Wishes, Robert
Windows explorer, click on this pc, right click on the drive, select properties, tools, error checking and you've just saved $25. When you do a backup it compresses the data so the system image is much smaller than you might think. This is normal.
You normally need a recovery disk to restore the disk image. If you have a CD burner or DVD RW device windows back up can create one for you. Burn two in case the first doesn't work.
Open the case I prefer to use an antistatic strap but touch the back of the case first to earth yourself. You'll probably need a screw driver but apart from that taking a hard drive out and putting a new one is is fairly straight forward.
The drive is probably sata but look up your model on the internet first or use belarc to determine what sort of drive you have. Basically they change the connectors every few years to screw people in the name of progress. Or take the back off and take a photo of the connectors and we can probably work it out but you might have to send it via email.
Once the drive is replaced then boot from the recovery disk with the external drive attached. Follow the instructions and it will reinstall windows for you on the new hard drive.
The cheapest way is newegg.com and use the knowledge in the forums. We are cheaper than the computer stores and probably know a lot more.
Cheerio John