Hard drive failed, having problems recovering

[iLLco]

Hello,

My hard drive recently failed on my laptop but the partition was still intact, so I made the recovery dvds and bought a new SSD not knowing that I couldn't recover to a smaller hard drive. I just want to get it functional again with Windows 7 and I have a product key so is there any reason I shouldn't just get a windows installation disk or are there important drivers on my recovery disks that necessitate me purchasing Acronis?

 

[J_E_D_70]

Can get the iso from here and use your legal product key. To my knowledge this is legit.

http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html

 

[dingo07]

first of all - if there's data that you MUST have on the failed drive, i would NOT power it on and try to retrieve the data. Every Second it's powerd up you risk losing data.

Since you have a new SSD, just install windows fresh on the SSD and reinstall all your progs. THEN you can determine Whether you want to risk trying to recover the data from the failed drive. If it's a mechanical fail, you lose data every second like I mentioned above.

All you need once the SSD is the new drive, is a cable like this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

 

[fzabkar]

Just FYI, if you have a WD or Seagate drive, then you can download a free OEM version of Acronis True Image from either manufacturer's web site. Seagate calls it DiscWizard.

 

[iLLco]

Best answer selected by iLLco.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey