Swapping HDD....

[fred smith]

On Wed, Dec 26, 2012 at 09:50:07PM -0500, Eddie G. O'Connor Jr. wrote:
> I am currently using a Gateway T-6321 laptop with a 320 GB  SATA HD. I'm 
> finding it's running out of room, with all the pdf's and other files I 
> have accumulated. I want to swap it out to a 750GB SATA HDD. How can I 
> do this when I don't have another laptop with the same exact specs as 
> the Gateway? In other words is it possible to transfer everything from 
> my current HDD to the 750GB one using an external USB enclosure? will I 
> be able to then install the 750GB HDD and have ALLmy settings and ALL my 
> applications transfer over intact? Any help someone could provide would 
> be greatly appreciated!

I would THINK you could put the new drive in the USB enclosure then
--boot from a live cd
--use dd from the live cd to copy the entire old drive to the new drive
  MAKING SURE you you understand which /dev/whatever is the old drive, and
  which is the new drive before you start this step. You wouldn't want
  to copy a nice empty drive over your existing data...
--use gparted live CD or partitionmagic or some such to "slide" the
  partitions around on the new drive and adjust their sizes to fit
  the new drive
--then cross your fingers, pray a bit, then swap the OLD drive out
  and the new drive IN, pray a bit more, then see if the machine boots.

if that doesn't get you where you need to go, you might try:
--with the new drive connected via USB
--boot from the aforementioned live CD
--create the partitions as you want them
--pray a while...
--copy all the files from each partition on the OLD drive into the
  matching partition on the NEW drive (using something akin to
  "cp -a /dev/sd<olddrive> </dev/sd<whatever-newdrive>").
--install GRUB on the new drive
--oh yeah, pray some more :)
--swap new into the computer and see what you get.

In either case, as long as you've been careful to NOT copy the new drive
on top of your old one, even if it doesn't work, all it's cost you is
some time. But I would expect either one of those to be doable.


-- 
---- Fred Smith -- fredex at fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
                      The eyes of the Lord are everywhere, 
                    keeping watch on the wicked and the good.
----------------------------- Proverbs 15:3 (niv) -----------------------------