M11X to M17X clone hard drive

[gogul1]

Hi I'm upgrading my M11X R3 to an M17X R3. I want to just copy over my hard drive to the new laptop so that i do not have to lose any settings/saves/ re install games etc Is there a way I can do this on 64 bit win 7? I know I can remove the harddrive and use a sata to usb cable but not sure of how to do it with the software in win 7. Also...is there a way to copy them both without having to remove the hard drives as this might be a pain in the rump.

[jthesmooth]

i did this about a couple months ago with my m14x to a m17x. i just popped out the old hd from my m14x and connected it externaly using a sata cable to my new m17x, then just used some cloning software. you can use the apricorn sata wire hard drive upgrade kit ASW-USB-25, comes with the cable and software. they sell it on amazon.

[Rishwin]

My question... Why?

You upgrade for a performance increase, but when you bring along your old HDD clogged with settings and aps and games and registry settings and drivers you're slowing down that new PC significantly.

Mate of mine spent $2,000 on a brand new PC setup, and used his old HDD so he didn't have to re-install windows. He couldn't see any performance increases at all but when he finally did a fresh install 6 months later he said "this is how my PC was supposed to be when i built it, i feel like an idiot now for not formatting. I may aswell have been using my old PC for the last 6 months and should have purchased these parts yesterday. I would have saved hundreds.". It actually makes a huge difference.

[gogul1]

Really? I figured it will still perform well etc I just don't want to start all my games from scratch when there are over 200 hours put into them already. Also I figured the upgrade was more so I could play the games at a better resolution and graphic setting rather than go the whole hog and rebuild the thing from scratch. I can surely re adjust things once the whole thing has been cloned, allowing me to tweak once it is all across.
Do you think it's possible?

[gogul1]

also, JTHESMOOTH, can you confirm from RISHWIN's comments that there is a massive slow down?

[jthesmooth]

rishwin is correct. this will impact your performance but not drastically. cloning is more for swapping out a hdd for a larger one, backing up ur data, or upgrading to a ssd, BUT ALL IN THE SAME PC. it would be more beneficial to start from scratch with fresh OS in ur new pc. the m17x has 2 drive bays you can just clone it if you want use ur m17x cloned hdd as ur primary and still have ur m11x hdd inside ur new pc as secondary storage with all ur partitions so you can boot from it with all ur data still on it. then i would just slowly transition everything to ur new drive with ur fresh OS. your choice what you want to do althoug you will have to go through the pain in the process of reinstalling everything, but atleast you will still have all ur data.

[jthesmooth]

btw all of ur game saves are most likely in ur directory or in ur programming folder. once u reinstall ur games just move your saves and you will be good to go

[Descalzo]

I've done it both ways:
1) I uninstalled a ton of drivers, swapped hard drives, then reinstalled all the necessary drivers.

B) I saved my old HD and started manually copying the savegames over after I had it set up the way I wanted.

Way B is better because you have a fresh system. You keep your old HD around until you're sure you have everything off it. You get a backup HD when you're done.

I did Way 1 only because I wanted to play sooner and the tech dude from work would have had to keep my new machine over the weekend and reinstall Win7Pro and Office himself, then I'd have to do the whole driver reinstall thing again. If you can, do Way B. I'm still tempted to redo the whole thing just so I can have a fresh system.