New Hardrive from old?

[Eblim]

Is it possible to completely duplicate my current Hardrive onto a new Hardrive and install it, and boot up my computer as if nothing changed? My computer is 4 years old and my Hardrive is dying after a lot of use.

Thanks in advance.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Yes. Through either imaging or cloning.

Cloning is a direct transfer from the old drive to the new, in real time.

Imaging requires that you make an image file and then restore it to the new drive for it to be bootable.

Both can work. Both can fail. Imaging is more commonly used.

The process can be more complicated depending on the number of partitions involved and the size of the drives and partitions.

The state of your current hard drive might have an affect if it is failing. You might be better off just reinstalling to a new hard drive rather than cloning or imaging. All you can do is try.

 

[mjf]

As stated by ignatzatsonic it definately can be done generally quite easily.
You can use Windows inbuilt imaging to image the system reserved partition (if you have one) and your OS partition. Windows will take care of this automatically.
I suggest you backup any data partitions independently.
Makesure your replacement HDD is at least the size of the original HDD then simply take the new HDD out of the bag replace on it's own and reimage. Then restore your data partitions.