HP recovery partition

[i2omani]

I have a client laptop that basically the HDD is in IMMINENT DANGER status!
it is a 120GB with a 13.8GB FAT32 partition for the recovery!

My question:
if i bought lets say 160GB and i partition a 13.8GB! can i clone/copy that recovery partition and use it to install the OS?

how can i do that please?

any input will be highly appreciated

[pcweirdness]

Assuming the drive isn't completely toast I would recommend cloning the entire drive. I have done this on a number of occasions with suspect drives, using either Norton Ghost or Acronis. I do a disk to disk clone which should do all the partitions etc.
I usually fit the new drive to the laptop and attach the old drive via a USB adapter and perform the clone that way.

[i2omani]

I usually fit the new drive to the laptop and attach the old drive via a USB adapter and perform the clone that way.

Can you explain this a little further for me please? does it mean you install acronis in the New HDD?

[14049752]

Can you explain this a little further for me please? does it mean you install acronis in the New HDD?

It means that you boot with a disc to clone the drives, or another machine with the software, and clone the drive as mentioned. It's a pretty routine thing...

[Sn@Ke]

Assuming the drive isn't completely toast I would recommend cloning the entire drive. I have done this on a number of occasions with suspect drives, using either Norton Ghost or Acronis. I do a disk to disk clone which should do all the partitions etc.
I usually fit the new drive to the laptop and attach the old drive via a USB adapter and perform the clone that way.

This is the same way I do it, I just wanted to add that Acronis is amazing, I love it. Acronis is really worth the money, it's saved me countless times.

[i2omani]

I have Acroins too! am i missing something here!
I would like to know how i will be able to clone a partition from a laptop HDD, to another laptop HDD. with Acronis using 1 SATA -> USB adapter?

is it possible other than ACG method ?! i think i will have to have a 2nd SATA -> USB adapter to be able to clone it! NO?

[angry_geek]

You can use a boot drive to boot the machine. Then clone the drive with the adapter.

[i2omani]

You could also just attach the drives and use a linux live cd like Knoppix to clone the drives using dd, dd_Rescue, NTFSCLONE, etc etc. One good example would be;

using dd command
old drive = sda new drive=sdb

dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=32256 conv=noerror,sync

Then reboot into something like gparted and resize the partition to reflect the full size of the drive, and you are good to go.

I never had luck with the dd! it copies everything but doesn't work.

what i did is used Acronis and clone the whole drive, then used the recovery and reinstall a fresh windows installation.