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If you buy a drive all ready to fire up and use, that's already in an enclosure, then you probably won't need to prep it but if you buy a drive on it's own then you probably will have to.
Bear in mind I am sticking with Windows XP and this probably also applies to Vista but not to Win 9x.
The first thing to do is connect up the drive to the laptop which you will do via either USB or Firewire. The system should recognize it and accept it but you won't see it in Explorer (or the equivalent) yet. To make it visible you need to launch, run, your Computer Manager which can be done in several ways. Here's one:
Start...Control Panel...Administration Tools...Computer Management...
Tip: maximize this window now.
Now select...
Storage...Disk Management...
Now, in the part of the window that says "Disk..." you can right-click and select "Initialize disk"
You can also select this from the menu (Action...All tasks...Initialize disk) if you prefer.
The hard drive will then be shown as "Basic" if all has gone smoothly (as it should do).
Right click on the part of the window that says "unallocated" and select Primary partition...next
At this point you have some options to consider, NTFS, size eg 512, (name) and the drive letter. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss these other than to say that as far as being able to use the programs Bax It! and Cloner you can have NTFS or FAT. You can have a FAT laptop drive and create either a FAT or an NTFS drive, there won't be a conflict. I have not yet tested doing it the other way around however (NTFS laptop drive and FAT new drive). There are arguments for each case, FAT/NTFS but you will have to research that elsewhere for the time being. The same goes for the size eg 512.
Perform "Quick Format"
"Unallocated" now changes to "Formatting" and after some minutes later to "Healthy"
Right click and select "Mark as active"
You can Right click and select "Path and letter" (if you didn't do this earlier or if you want to change it)
Only now will the new hard drive be visible in Explorer.
Most of the above was written from handwritten notes contemporaneously written whilst performing the set of operations on a new drive but Microsoft can (and does) alter the way it's programs work so you have to bear that in mind if you encounter a problem. But please let me know if you do as I want to update this if anyone discovers that there are snags.
Special note.
If you fail to make the drive 'Active' then you won't be able to use a cloned drive - it is therefore essential to make absolute certain that you don't skip any steps or just assume all is well. With a drive that is not set to 'Active' you can clone but the clone won't work.
Don't worry though, as you can see quite clearly whether or not it is 'Active' eg where it says "Healthy" if it is active then it will say "Healthy (Active)". If it doesn't, if it only says "Healthy" then you need to go over the steps again, checking and correcting.
Also, you will find an abundance of web site and book and magazine info on this subject which talks about the MBR (master boot record) and Boot.ini and FDisk. Save yourself a headache and just regard all that stuff as archaic and of no interest at all. The operations I have explained above and in the rest of my articles in this set don't require any of these (MBR, Boot.ini, FDisk and other outdated information) because we have moved on and are using a more up to date technology to accomplish the same results (as those things used to do) in a much, much easier, simpler and guaranteed way.
Although the above may seem onerous the fact is it is very simple and can be done very quickly but because each step is an important step I recommend that you keep a paper record as you go of each small step.
Your new drive can now be 'seen' by Explorer and can be used by Bax It! and by Cloner and (if it is 'Active') can be swapped with your laptop drive (after cloning first, obviously) and you will be able to startup from it just like you did with the laptop drive.
That is exactly what you need to do next, full backup with Bax It! (may take many hours first time/s) then clone (using Bax It! and Cloner) and then swap the drives over and test to make sure it all works as intended. Do not swap the drives without first reading the guidance on this.
By Paul E. Coughlin
SaneThinking.com
27 May 2008
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