Acer and New HDD issues

[DanF]

Got an Acer of which the client would like to upgrade its HDD.

The installed HDD is a 250GB while the new one is 500GB. I've copied the recovery partition from the smaller HDD into the new one and booted from it. It starts well until it restarts (part of the process) and starts installing windows. 7. It stops stating that the installation cannot continue due to hardware changes (or similar, cause the OS is in Italian). Apparently the recovery process tries to find the 250GB HDD, and when not found thinks it's not an Acer.

Unfortunately, the license key is unreadable, so I'm not in a position to use an OEM disk. Tried to read the license key from the old installation, but apparently it's clear that the key being read is totally different from the one on the Microsoft label, and installing using this key won't activate.

I tried to create the recovery disks from the old installation, but the DVD process stopped at Disk 2 for no reason.

Any ideas?

 

[Kitten Kong]

How about a sector clone using any one of the cloning programs. Then if needed use partition magic to extend the remaining space if needed. Else use it for data use only.

The code on the original installation will not work, and will always be different due to that its the manufacturer code. Rather than a usable code.

 

[Kitten Kong]

Only other option is for manufacturer recovery media.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

If the old drive is good, agreed just do a full clone of that drive, then clean everything up. Otherwise you are going to need recovery media from the manufacturer.

 

[DanF]

Haven't tried the sector by sector cloning... thanks for your suggestion.

I've read that the recovery media would have the same result. Will keep the thread updated just in case any one else has the same question.

 

[Martyn]

The recovery media usually doesn't require the coa.

 

[Markverhyden]

I've had varying degrees of success copying just the recovery partition and using it for a restore. I've pretty much given up on that technique in the beginning of the work flow. I'll do the full image first. If there are problems down the road I'll try the recovery partition. But to be honest with the way things are these days with UEFI, etc I'd rather have the proper recovery media on hand. It's great for the EU as well.

 

[tlaybourn]

Maybe this the old Advanced Format problem.

I had a similar problem when I used this method but it turned out that the version of Windows installed on the Recovery Partition did not understand AF.

 

[DanF]

For your information:

Got around the issue by restoring the system on the original HDD, then cloning all partitions to the new HDD.