How to setup new notebook from HP laptop with bad hard drive

[draco97]

Got kids a new Hp laptop in June.  The hard drive has been getting progressively louder and is obviously about to go, with a blue screen error forcing a roll back of the computer.  I have done a full backup to an external hard drive and I am returning this for a replacement.  Should I make a recovery disc and reinstall from the disc when I get the new laptop, or should I just plug in the external hard drive and transfer the files over?  A guy at work says using the recovery disc is the way to go, because it would reinstall Norton and all the other programs we have installed., but I thought the external hard drive backup was supposed to be the way to do this

[CherylG]

Not sure I understand the question. "Should I make a recovery disc and reinstall from the disc when I get the new laptop, or should I just plug in the external hard drive and transfer the files over?" Usually HP replaces only the hdd.

If you are receiving a new hdd to put it the laptop, yes you need to burn the Recovery Disks to reinstall Windows & original software on it. You can then use your backup to restore files.

IF the full backup you are referring to is a complete System Image, it can be used to restore Windows, programs and all files,etc on the new hdd. You do need to also burn the Repair CD to boot from and restore the System Image on the new hdd.(I would still burn a Recovery DVD set to have as a fallback)

If you are receiving an entire laptop replacement it will have everything installed on it. You will just have to restore your personal files from the backup

[draco97]

We are getting a whole new laptop, and not sure if just restoring files form an external hard drive would be enough, OR should we do a full system restore to ensure all the programs get installed as well.  Windows 7 said it was making a ghost image on the external hard drive.  Is that what we should use to make sure the new laptop has everything the old one does (by old I mean 3 months, but hard drive is obviously on its last legs)

[CherylG · Accepted solution]

Since you are getting an entire laptop replacement it will have everything installed on it that the 'old' one came with.

If you have installed new programs,games etc_then yes restoring the Image would be the best way to get everything back quickly. This would assume that the replacement is the same model or very similiar since an Image restores drivers also which must match the machine's hardware.