new hard drive for 2008

i finally got the nerve to put a new hard drive in my laptop last week. everyone eventually runs out of space, right? i've been adding hard drives to my home computer for years now - it's up to 5 drives by now, but putting a new drive in a laptop is a different beast because most laptops can only have one internal drive at a time.

in the end, it was a lot easier than i thought it would be and it's nice to be able to keep the original drive as a backup. here's how i did it:

first, buy these things:

1. enermax jazz external 2.5'' SATA hard drive enclosure = $30



2. western digital 2.5'' 160 GB, 5400 RPM hard drive = $140

put the new drive into the enclosure as per the instructions.

plug it in it to a USB port.

western digital provides a cool free program called DATA LIFEGUARD TOOLS. download it. and then install it.

when you run the LIFEGUARD TOOLS it should recognize your new drive connected to the USB.

format the new drive.

now, there's an option in the LIFEGUARD TOOLS to "copy partition." use it to copy your entire old hard drive onto the new one. this will put necessary startup files on the new drive.

finally, unplug your laptop and remove the battery. take your new drive out of its enclosure and put it in your laptop and then transfer your old drive from your laptop into the now empty enclosure.

once you plug your laptop back in, it should start up as normal and you can use your old drive as an external drive or keep it as a backup.