cloning Harddrive of HP laptop

[dtiao7eb]

Hello all,

My friend's hp laptop says harddrive test failed. It is also extremely slow to load windows/programs etc.

I assume the harddrive is really dying.

Is it possible to clone his harddrive onto a new harddrive of the same size?
How would i go about doing this. Also HP has a partition for "recovery" do i need to partition the NEW harddrive to include the recovery?

Thanks for your help!

David

 

[enigmaz7]

never attempted to do this, but I know that you can use a live CD and run the "dd" command in GNU/linux to copy bit for bit from one drive to the other. There are also free drive clone software online, and I believe hirens boot CD has a few with it. Never attempted any of these, but we did talk about them in my data forensics class.

 

[johnb35]

If the drive is failing, I would not recommend cloning it and you may transfer issues to the new drive, highly recommend a fresh install of windows. If you the machine allows you to make recovery cd's, make them now and use them to reinstall windows. If not, call pc maker for recovery cd's.