Upgrading Laptop SATA HDD

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I bought a new SATA HDD for my Toshiba Laptop (Vista). Using Symantec Ghost, I made a full back up to an external drive and set it aside.

I partitioned the new drive into two, one 1.5GB partition to match the Toshiba recovery drive (no drive letter). I partitioned, but did not assign a drive letter to the remaining space.

I then hooked the new HDD as an external USB drive and "ghosted" the old to the new. I swapped the old and the new, but Windows boots to a blank, light-blue screen. I can run task manager and get a command-line prompt, but not much will run. I'm guessing some services aren't loaded because they expect to be on the C drive and Windows has assigned "F" to the drive.

I can boot from the old drive but Vista won't let me change the drive letter to C: I can't change it because I booted from the old, but I can't boot from the new until I change it.
How can I change the drive letter?
 
You need a minimum of 2.5 GB of space.
Also, in our experience, the Ghosted recovery partition will not work when moved, as it is designed to detect the change in configuration. This is a Microsoft requirement. You should talk to Toshiba.
However, the Drive Letter is a different issue, again having to do with the Ghost version of a hidden partition.
 
Thanks -- I'll check with Toshiba.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by a minimum of 2.5 GB of disk space. The new HD is 40 GB larger. I set the "Toshiba" partition as 1.5 GB as that was the size of the old partition. It's only using about 500 MB -- are you saying it still needs to be 2.5 GB?
 
The partition is not large enough... It needs to be at a minimum 17% larger than the installed one you are moving in order to allow for the software adjustments.
But making the partition usable is trickier. It is very rare that anyone can move a hidden partition while retaining its usability.
Microsoft and the computer manufacturers have worked diligently to prevent this, as it could be a terrific method for making illegal copies of Windows... just sell drives with windows on the hidden partition.
It just doesn't work.
 
Ok, I fixed it. I installed the new HDD, used Toshiba's Recovery Disks to set everything up, then ran Ghost to restore Sunday's complete computer backup. Next time, I'll know how to do it.
 
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