Windows 7: Win 7 to new hard drive

My hard drive is failing due to a bad sector so I plan on buying the exact replacement for $50 from newegg. What do I need to do to get my Windows 7 onto the new hard drive?

Is it working well enough to make an image backup ?

Imaging with free Macrium

Yes, it's crashed twice within the past 2wks. I'm actually on it right now, but this time I have the S.M.A.R.T. notification saying the hard drive is going to fail.

For the back up image part I see:

1. Dell Utility
2. Recovery
3. OS (C

As long as you are moving to a HDD the same size or larger it's very simple.
I have made two HDDs this way:

With Windows imaging
1) Image old disk to ext HDD
2) Replace old HDD with new HDD (no prep needed - straight out of the bag). Do NOT leave both drives connected.
3) Boot with System Repair Disk or install DVD and reimage to new HDD

That's it for the Windows bootable part of the job.

Products like Macrium will also work (with Macrium you need to image 100MB system reserved if you have one and say YES to MBR replace). When reimaging you need to reimage both the system reserved and the Windows OS partition separately. Macrium may require you to reformat the disk beforehand.
I find Windows imaging simpler for this task since it does all the above automatically.

For your Dell RECOVERY and Dell UTILITY. Definitely use Macrium for these partitions. I did exactly the same for an Acer recovery partition.

So I:
1) Restored the OS partition and disk partition structure with Windows imaging.
2) Followed up later with Macrium to put the manufacturers partitions back.

So I can just use the Windows Image tool to put it on my external HDD then use the recovery disc when I get the new HDD?

How do I do the imaging from the ext HDD?

OK, gotcha, Windows for the OS and Macrium for the other 2.

How do I do the reimaging though?

You store your images on an external HDD.
Windows:
You boot with a system repair DVD and choose the restore an image option. It will pick the lastest image but you can tell it to show all image options. Also occasionally "refresh" the scan if it didn't find it.
Macrium:
Boot with the linux boot the recovery CD/DVD. and select the partitions to restore.

Windows and Macrium will make the recovery disks. I suggest you try BOTH ahead of imaging. Obviously just exit when you're happy they are working.

Hello, which drives are you referring too here?

I made a system repair disc using windows and on another cd i made one with Macrium already

I've been running the image back up for about 20min now and its only about 30% done (guessing by progress bar)

Once I get my new HDD I do this:

Put Windows Recovery CD in disc drive and have external HDD plugged in and restore image

For the other 2 partitions its the same thing but using the Macrium recovery?

Sorry for all the ?'s, I just need a simple walkthrough of all the steps I take

Yes you look on track.
Just note that when reimaging to the new HDD the old HDD must NOT be connected.
Re: the windows imaging time depend on a number of factors. Are you imaging around 100GB? Also, for some Windows imaging appears to present a problem I guess due to some particular system configuration. Your imaging should complete and ask if you want to make another recovery DVD (yes or no is up to you).

PS: If Windows imaging plays up on you just do the lot with Macrium. I just find Windows imaging simpler for the first step.