CMS Data & Operating System transfer Kit for PATA/SATA Notebook Drives

Now, to begin with I'm not a techie type, but I saw a demonstration of the CMS transfer kit on You-Tube: it looked straightforward so decided to give it a go. I'm upgrading a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop with 60G hard drive, purchased in Feb 2006. First, I checked the PC spec on the Dell website by entering the service tag - the disk spec wasn't helpful, but I saw that the controllers were Intel IDE/ATA so I knew that I needed an ATA (or PATA) replacement. I bought the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 160GB EIDE 8MB Cache 2.5 inch Internal Hard Drive (Western Digital Scorpio Blue 160GB EIDE 8MB Cache 2.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM) - great value and received well packaged from Amazon. In the CMS Data Transfer kit you get an aluminium enclosure, USB to mini-USB cable, USB to 9 volt cable (in case your PC can't supply enough power via the normal USB - I didn't need this), Data Transfer (also called BounceBack) software and even a screwdriver. The circuit board inside the enclosure is cleverly designed to take a SATA drive at one end (short, wide connector block) and an ATA drive at the other. (longer, narrow connector) You need to use controlled force to push the drive into the ATA connector, but just support the drive and block and push until the pins disappear into the block. One thing that the instructions don't tell you is that there are two "spare" pins which don't connect. Once you have the drive properly pushed home, it should sit on the board with the rubber edge of the SATA connector flush against the drive case end - if it doesn't, the drive/board unit won't go back into the enclosure. Next, slide the whole unit back into the enclosure and secure with two screws (CMS supply three screws - I assume one is a spare) then connect to the PC using the USB - mini USB lead. Put the Data Transfer disk into the CD/DVD drive - the software uses .NET, so if required, installs a version first. Then, you just enter the security code, click a few buttons, accept the default partitions suggested, (what do I know ?) go away and return a couple of hours later! BounceBack completes with a reboot and uninstalls itself from your "old" drive. Eject the new drive from Windows and remove from the enclosure, ready to install in the PC.
Now, a nerve-wracking event for a non-techie(!) - turn over the PC, remove the battery, earth any static charges on you or your equipment and take out the two screws marked with the "disk" symbol. Using your fingernails, slide the drive tray out from the side, remove two retaining screws (one each side) and the drive is released.
My heart sank immediately when I compared the two drives - the old Seagate drive pins were closer to the internal end of the tray than the new drive would be. I noticed that the Seagate pins were more in the form of a connector block, and was able to remove this "extension" piece and fit it to the new drive. Screwed into the tray, reinstalled and yes, it works!

A few application issues encountered: first, Outlook could not find "Outlook.pst": instead of looking for it, I let Outlook create a new, empty file, but turns out that this was all my emails, contacts etc.! No problem though - put the old drive into the enclosure, connect up and copy the file. Also, Excel wanted a .CAB file that wasn't even on the old drive, so I got that from the original Office CD supplied by Dell.

Overall, transfer kit and drive are superb pieces of kit and I'm very pleased with my 100+GB of free space plus useful external 60GB drive for under £90.

The CMS transfer kit is very simple to use, in my case it did the transfer with out any problems. The only thing is that the transfer took nearly 3 hours, for 60gb(half full) to 120gb hard disk. Its a good idea to defrag the new hard disk once the transfer has been completed as mine has 21% of fragmented files after transfer (the old hard disk has been defrag before the transfer was made).
Other wise its a great peice of kit, very simple to use.

I have just used this, exactly as Philip Lewis did, to transfer the entire 60 GB hard disk of a Dell Inspiron 6000 to a new larger 160 GB hard disk. It worked without problem, but there are a few points worth noting.

First, the instructions that come with the kit are rather brief. I found it really useful to have a copy of the software manual from the CMS website at http://www.cmsproducts.com/pdf/dtk-25u2/BBTransferSoftwareManual.pdf, though even this is a little out of date.

Second, in reply to the comment that it did not copy Mr. Lewis' Outlook files, it is important to note that you need to have no other programs running or it will not copy the relevant files. It also says to turn off your firewall etc.

Third, unlike some more complex backup and imaging software, the software supplied with the kit does not allow you to choose the source disk that you copy from. It will always copy the disk fitted in your computer that carries the operating system (i.e. the disk that carries the C: drive). You cannot use it to copy from one external disk to another external disk. I was replacing a hard disk that had developed faults and looked likely to fail. I could not even load Windows. I was able to repair the disk by putting it in a caddy and using the Windows disk checking utility (in effect, running chkdsk r) from another computer. I would have preferred then to have imaged the disk to a new one while it was still in the caddy, but the CMS Data Transfer software cannot do this, so I had to put the repaired disk back into the original computer (where it would load Windows after the repair), and copy from it like that. I was nervous about having to load Windows from a disk that had already failed once, but it didn't fail again and I was able to complete the whole process (which involves several computer restarts) OK.

Fourth, unlike G. Niven, I didn't format the new disk myself first, and I can't see the point of this - the sofware reformats the disk anyway so you would lose any formatting you had done. My disk contained the C: drive and two small unlettered partitions (I think for "return to factory settings", etc). The new disk was much bigger. The two unlettered partitions were copied over at the same size, and the extra space was automatically added to the C: drive.

Finally, as Mr. Lewis says, the hard disk in the computer (at least in the Dell Inspiron 6000) has an adapter on its pins, and you have to ease this off and fit it to the new disk when you swap them over. Make sure that you earth yourself before doing this, as you are bound to touch the connectors.