Installing new hard drive on FSC Amilo LI 1720 laptop

Good morning. Greetings from Cape Town

I have been using new 160 GB 2.5 IDE WD Scorpio Laptop Hard Drive 160 2.5" in an external USB caddy while I have been sorting out the programmes and data on my Fujitsu Siemens Amilo LI 1720.

The hard drive has been working well and I now want to install in the laptop to replace the existing 80GB WD Scorpio hard drive.

I've checked through all the necessary steps to be taken to physically change the drive and have used WD's Lifeguard to partition the drive as well as copy the boot information and programme files.

The one point which I'm not clear on and which I hope somebody can help with an answer is: How do I get Windows XP to recognise the new drive as the C:\ drive so that the programme settings and registry are retained ?

At the moment using the 160GB on a USB port Windows recognises it as either F:\ or G:\ and I seem to remember from some time ago that Windows will not allow a change of name or path for the system boot drive.

Is there a simple solution or do I have to start from a completely new Windows installation ?

Hope you can help.

Best wishes
BillPCT

You may have great difficulty doing this... Windows XP is controlling, and it may detect the hard drive as an install moved from one computer to another, and shut down as part of the Microsoft Anti-piracy security.
If it does that, you will not get it to do anything using a restore or recovery disc set. You need to install it as a new install after saving all the data to a cd or flash drive.

Many thanks. I thought that was the case but was just hoping that I'd overlooked a simple, easy way forward.

I've already got the drive image and the new drive partitioned and ready so here goes.

I'll place a post once I've completed the job in case it will help others for future reference.