Laptop HDD on desktop?

[bhobson333]

Seems like it should be a common scenario: Client's laptop Hard Disk Drive is full, we can get a bigger HDD but he REALLY doesn't want to start over from scratch.

It's not a big deal, given the right tools, to copy a partition from the old HDD to the new, then expand the partition on the new drive. I have done this several times for my ReplayTV. The problem is, how to do this with laptop HDDs.

Is there a way to plug laptop hard drives to the EIDE controller on my desktop? Is there a better software tool to use than RTVPatch? Can I instead do this only on the laptop? (doubtful)

Any help/advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Brian

[rpertusio]

What.. like.. this?

Do a google search for 2.5 3.5 adapter or something similar. There are also 'enclosures' for a more permanent solution.

- rp

[bhobson333]

Originally posted by rpertusio
What.. like.. this?

Cooool! Thanks! I had never seen such an animal before! Any recommendations on partition-copying software?

[rpertusio]

Well, Norton (Symantec) ghost is usually the first partition copy program that comes to mind. However, if all you want to do is copy files over, then drag/drop will work fine

Also, I think if you use ghost, it will automatically expand the partition to fill the entire drive.

- rp