Copy entire laptop HDD

[DSapseid]

I am having a mare of morning with the one the heads for the school i look after.

Basically she was having real problems with her laptop and ordered a new and i have now got to move all the data accross from one laptop to another. The files are not stored on the server but locally on the machine!

The problem is that the bloody thing keeps blue screening with a different error everytime It blue screens when i double click my computer, outlook anything so i cant get the data of it. Its blue screened 12 times in the last 2 hours and so far i have only got 200mb of data of only 4gb left!!!

I will probably try and do this by hitting f8 and going into comand before windows loads. Is there a line that i can type in to command prompt so i can copy it to a external USB HDD?

[webman]

Presuming all the hardware is OK, you could boot the laptop with a live Linux disc such as Knoppix then copy required files to a USB drive or via the network; or you could remove the laptop harddrive, put it in a 2.5" IDE => USB adapter/caddy and plug that into another, working computer and copy the files off.

Due to windows' unmodular nature and the way it relies on the GUI to do anyting, I don't think you will have much luck in getting USB drives working in the safe mode command prompt mode.

[contink]

I'd go with WebMans suggestion..

Get a couple of USB caddys and then pop the source (original disk) in one and the new disk in the other... Plug into a workstation and do a straight copy or robocopy should make everything available on the new drive or use something like Ghost/TrueImage to be really sure of your clone.

FWIW... I've now got 2 sata and 2 IDE caddys for this sort of thing and already it's paid its way in spades!... Can't recommend getting some enough.

[plexer]

Bart PE.

Ben

[Dos_Box]

XCOPY has a few switches to do this retaining file permissions, but to be hoinest all you need tyo save is her user area\profile within 'Documents and Settings'. You can dig out .PST files etc later.
By the sound of the error syou are having the HD is failing. It would be best to let it cool overnight and if possible get it in an external caddy (part of any decent IT support dept toolkit) and get it off ASAP.

[DSapseid]

Thanks guys for all the replys i am currently as we speaking copying the data accross using knoppix. Works a treat 8)

Think i will purchase one of the adapter caddys though for next time as i have spent all day on this and i wasnt even supposed to be at this school today