Help Migrating to a Larger Boot Hard Drive

AuxNuke

Gawd
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Nov 11, 2001
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With the release of Stalker, SupCom, and the Vanguard trial, I've finally "outgrown" my trusty old original revision (00FLA0) 74gb Raptor. I use the Raptor as my C: drive; It contains windows XP, all of my apps, and the page file. I use a second 400gb drive for all data files.

I have, in hand, a shiny new Raptor 150gb drive. Since my installation of Windows XP is running perfectly stable and fast, I'd really love to just "image" my existing C: driver over to the new 150gb drive. I know I'll have to partition the 150gb drive before the image, but other than that, I've always just done a fresh install when working with a new boot drive so I have no experience in migrating a boot partition to a larger hard drive.

What's the best way to go about this? Should I use something like this simple utility?

Thanks in advance,
~Aux
 
I'm pretty sure Partition Magic will do that. I think there is even a free trial availible.
 
Never used the utility, but they claim it to have everything your need to clone hard drives.
I wonder if it automatically resizes the partitions to match bigger hard drives, or you'll have to do that manyally later with another utility?
Personally I use Acronis True Image.
 
Never used the utility, but they claim it to have everything your need to clone hard drives.
I wonder if it automatically resizes the partitions to match bigger hard drives, or you'll have to do that manyally later with another utility?
Personally I use Acronis True Image.
Thanks for the reply. I took a look at Acronis True Image. Looks like it might do the task, but it's $50. I'm looking for a 1 time use, preferably free proggie for this... and maybe some brief instructions on how to do it correctly :cool:

~Aux
 
Give the software you listed a shot, it might work.

If it doesn't, I think you can expand the partition in Norton Ghost when loading the image.

If my memory serves me right, this should work (using Ghost 2003..yeah im oldschool :p) :

Load up Ghost and make your image.
Select Image->Drive and not Image->Partition to restore the image.
On the confirmation screen, you should be able to edit the size of the partition that will be created, choose the full 150gb.


If that also doesnt work either, make an image, load it on the 150GB raptor, then use Partition Magic to resize the partition.
 
If that also doesnt work either, make an image, load it on the 150GB raptor, then use Partition Magic to resize the partition.
I'm thinking this would be the best way to go about it. I'll use that little utility listed in my first post to image the data over to the new drive, boot up into the new drive, then use a partition utility to "fix" the remaining space.

I'd use the Norton ghost method, but I don't own a copy. Thanks!

~Aux
 
I have used HDclone and it has worked very well for me. If you want to expand the partition for free, use diskpart.exe (a free MS utility) You will want to look at the knowledge base for how to use it, as it is not a graphical program. It worked great for me.

Good Luck,

~PJ
 
I have used HDclone and it has worked very well for me. If you want to expand the partition for free, use diskpart.exe (a free MS utility) You will want to look at the knowledge base for how to use it, as it is not a graphical program. It worked great for me.

Good Luck
Thanks, pj-schmidt. I'll let you all know how it goes. I'll be doing this after work on Tuesday.

~Aux
 
Ghost will do the trick, all you need is the bootdisk for that matter.

Or grab a live linux CD and use gparted. It's basically a free partition magic like program.
 
I'd use DriveImageXML - this will allow you to copy your Partition from the 74G raptor to the 150G one. I'm pretty sure DriveImageXML allows you to copy from smaller to larger drives/partitions without any issues.

If it does not, i'd go download Puppy Linux and use GtParted to resize the partition after copying.

in short
1 - DriveImageXML is an excellent/free disk imaging program. You can even create an image inside of Windows if you wish. UBCD4Win has this program if you'd rather not image from inside of Windows.
2 - GTParted - supurb free Partition management program. Allows you to resize partitions without loosing data. (on most bootable CD linux distros... I prefer Puppy)
 
I thought of one more thing you may need to know. If you've had both drives loaded while windows is open (both have a letter - 74g=c 150=d), then clone the drives and then try to boot off of the 150 gig drive, windows will likely remember it as the D: drive + windows will actually still start from the 74G drive (or won't boot at all if the 74G drive is not in the system)

Resolution for this - FDISK /MBR in DOS. - this re-writes the master boot record of the drive, which stores partition info... which Windows Disk Manager uses to "remember" drives. You may have trouble with fdisk as an option unless DOS recognizes SATA drives - I honestly don't know.. i've never owned a computer with SATA. - I'm sure there are other ways to rewrite the MBR... i'm just not familiar with them.
 
Took into account everything that you all said. For anyone that's interested, here's a step by step walk through of what I did:

1) Disconnected my 400gb data drive (E:) and connected the new 150gb Raptor in its place.
2) Booted off of the 74gb Raptor (C:) into Windows XP
3) Ran Windows Disk Management. Initialized and partitioned the 150gb drive. Assigned it a name "Temp" and NO drive letter.
4) Set the 150gb drive to "Active" and then closed Windows Disk Management.
5) Ran DriveImageXML. Chose the "Drive to Drive" option. Selected the 74gb (C:) drive as the "Copy From" drive and the 150gb (No drive letter; shows up as a ?) as the "Copy To" drive. I selected the "Try Volume Shadow Services First" option for this copy. This prompted me with a warning saying that all information on Drive0#1, the Raptor 150gb, was going to be erased. I confirmed this dialog box and started the copy. The copy took about 22 mins; about 64gb of data.
7) A dialog box let me know that the process had finished successfully.
8) I exited the program and saw that Windows had temporarily given the Raptor 150gb a drive letter of D. Both drives, C and D, had exactly the same name and content in windows explorer.
9) I shut down the PC, removed the 74gb Raptor, reconnected the 400gb data drive, and set the 150gb Raptor as the primary boot HD in the BIOS.
10) Upon saving the BIOS settings, the computer booted directly off of the new 150gb Raptor drive. Windows explorer showed the drive as "C:" with 139gb capacity (Which is correct with formatting: ~7% of 150gb = 10.5, 150 - 10.5 = 139.5gb)

Perfect replica of the 74gb drive, only larger and faster :)
hdtach_rap150.jpg


~Aux
 
glad the program worked out for you - I think that had you left the 74G hooked up to your system, you would have had problems on 1st boot, but that's an easy fix. Now that your system has booted from your 150G, i don't think re-adding the 74G back in would hurt anything.

If you're intrested in selling the 74G for cheap, i'd be interested.
 
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