Upgrading laptop HD using external HDD possible?

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Hello,
I want to upgrade my thinkpad T23 15GB HD to an 80GB one.
- Can I use an external 40GB USB HDD to clone the image of the old drive to it, and from there to the new hard drive using PowerQuest Drive Image? I was planning to do it like adviced in http://www.mikeshardware.com/howtos/laptop_hd_upgrade/, but now I think it would be great if I could use the external HDD I borrowed actually for backing up data only, instead of going via a desktop PC. Also the link I mention is not very new, there might be better ways?

I guess one question is if my thinkpad's BIOS (date 5/29/2003) can boot from the USB drive? Or, can I boot from a boot disk, formate the pristine HD that is then in the laptop and get the old HD image from the external HDD to it? I don't get any support from IBM because out of warranty.

I would like to clone the old hard drive to the new one because I bought the laptop used with everything installed so I don't have any installation CDs for operating system etc.

If I would not need to transfer the programs from my old hard drive, but could install everything from scratch, I guess this would be much easier. Right?

I am sorry if I am asking something already discussed but I could not find a helpful thread for this.

I'd appreciate any help.
 
I'm not sure about IBM compatability, but LaCie makes a new external SATA drives (they say they're PC and Mac compatable), from which you can boot.

I moved my entire system to my external by making a clone image using Casper XP which saved the image to my external. I chaged the Hard Drive selection order in by BIOS boot settings, and I now boot from and run everything from my eSATA drive. I formatted my internal for storage.

If you want to use an external, eSATA is the only way to go. It has speeds as fast or faster than many internal drives. USB and Firewire are way too slow, and people usually have problems booting from these.

Hope that helps.

bb
 
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