Installing and partitioning a new laptop drive with Windows 7

[pw2much]

I have a Dell Inspiron 6400/e1505 and I have windows 7 ultimate on it. The hard drive is only 60GBs in size and it only has 3GB of space left on it. I want to install a new HD 500GB in the laptop, but the old harddrive has drive C;\ and Backup (D:\) on it, I want to partition the new drive to have Drive C:\ and the rest extened space. what are the proceedures to perform this task. and please in details. (P.S.) I don't have the OS disc to re-install Win.7. What I do have is a 500GB Harddrive and a USB to Sata connection cable to connect the harddrive to the computer, a windows 7 repair disc for the system and backup discs from the old harddrive. How do I proceed? I have tried it once using the tools that I have and it copied the os and files just like the old drive but not enabling me to extend the C:\ drive.

 

[cliffordcooley]

The easiest way would probably be a cloning software with a external HDD as a backup drive.

1. create an image backup to the external drive
2. switch drives in the laptop
3. write the image backup from the external drive

I know these manufacturer's have free cloning software that can be used with their drives:

• Western Digital
• Seagate
• Maxtor
• Intel (SSD Drives)