Install new hard drive and raw copy

[Opariti]

Hi,

My HP G71 is a 64 bit, 4GB RAM and WD320BEVT hard drive. The laptop has over 5 years of service and I want to replace with a new hard drive while making a raw copy of the current one. I have a dual boot Win 7/Ubuntu installation that I want to keep on the new hard drive.

As I didn't find a new HD of the same type and capacity I would like to replace the current one with another Western Digital 2.5", IDE interface, but with a capacity of 0.5TB or 1TB (I can chose one or another).

My questions:

- can I install one of these hard drives on this laptop? Are they compatible withe the current chipset/BIOS?

- if I do a raw copy of the 320 GB drive to either the 0.5 or 1TB, how would the current OS partitions will be reflected on a higher capacity drive?

- I have bought an interface adapter IDE/USB so that to make possible the raw copy, could you recommend, if the above questions have the GO, a good free-of-use software that I could use?

Thanks for your help!

[Huffer]

So it is a PATA hard drive? Brass pins, not square plastic connectors? I have never seen a 1 TB PATA (aka IDE) drive...don't think they made them and even 500 gigs are very hard to find now. What do you mean by a raw copy...like a Norton Ghost image? The problem I have had trying to make an image of a Linux installation is that during boot, Linux looks for specific hardware and if the hard drive is not the same as the original you will get a very long pause and likely it will not boot at all. I seem to recall maybe you can edit the fstab file in the Linux installation but it has been a long time since I tried to do that. 

[Opariti]

Yes, it was not easy to find the IDE Western drives but I can really have them. I have a lot of apps and data on the 320GB drive so the raw copy - bit-by-bit copy - would be the best. Interesting your point on Linux, never heard so far. More precisely, I have an Ubuntu 16.04 distro.

[Huffer · Accepted solution]

Yeah I use Kubuntu and have tried many times to just image the whole drive and it does reproduce the Linux partitions and Grub but when you try to boot Linux it will hang and say can't find the specific prior hard drive. So now I just do a backup of Windows and reinstall Kubuntu from scratch. Much easier. I do think there are also Linux backup programs you can use but never really saw the need. 

[Opariti]

Thanks! It's not really the solution I was looking for but it comes with common sense from your experience and I share it. This is more trustful than the other - non-verified - Internet stack hints & co.