Restoring Windows onto a new HD

Ok guys, so I am in a very delicate situation, or at least feel like i am. I do not have my Windows Vista disk anymore (actually I don't think that my computer even came with one, since Best Buy had it booted on here originally.) But my HD is dying, it's clicking/going out on me and I received my replacement HD today.

So here is my problem. I have my Local Disk completely backed up to an external HD through the program EZ Backup. But I am not sure if I'll be able to actually boot windows up from that. I would have no idea what to do, if that is even possible. So I am at a complete loss.

Any help, would be VERY much appreciated. My computer is a Toshiba Satellite A505. Any help you guys have would be very appreciated!

Thanks!

If the replacement drive is the same size there are many system imaging backup programs that can restore the image so that it's bootable:

Free Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities (thefreecountry.com)

Best free backup software. Hard drive backup and recovery, image and clone freeware - EaseUS Todo Backup Free

You back up your system to an image on the external drive. Burn a boot CD of the imaging program. After installing the new HD you boot the CD and run the program to uncompress the backup image and write it onto the HD. I'm using Easus ToDo Backup. But Macrium Reflect Free I've used in the past. They both work well. I would go on the forums of one of those sites and ask if you need to format the drive during the restore process. They can answer your questions in detail. Since it's an image it may be that writing the image onto a raw drive has the effect of formatting. But I would ask on the forum of the program you choose before you do anything.

Best to avoid surprises.

Actually, as lomng as it's larger than the original your good too go.

Patonb said:

Actually, as lomng as it's larger than the original your good too go.

Click to expand...

Right. But there's more free choices if the drive size is the same. Stuff like dd based schemes. Direct sector to sector copy. Even with stuff like Macrium Reflect if you restore to a larger drive, the partition is the original size. You're just left with another partition after the active one. At least for backup image restore. A drive clone product may have a few more bells and whistles.

That reminds me. A guy on another forum makes extensive use of docking stations. Periodically he would make an image backup of his system disk. He would then restore the image to an identical drive in the dock. He rotated these backup drives in a small tower of drawers like you can get at Walmart for $10.. If he had a drive fail or it somehow got corrupted, he just opened up the box, replaced the drive, and booted up. Only changes lost were since the last image.

That's one approach.

But since you have some warning your drive is on the way out, if you have or can borrow a USB 2.0 docking station, it might not be a bad way to do it.