Is this possible?

[Rubber Bullets]

My main HDD is getting a bit small and has also started making slightly worrying noises on startup. Time for a change I think. I'm just not sure I can be arsed to do a complete reinstall.

Is it possible to copy everything on the drive to another so that the computer will boot from the new one if it replaces the old? I guess copy and paste won't cut it Is there any free/cheap software that does?

RB

 

[inactionman]

Acronis TrueImage or Linux will do it for free, if you know you to do it.

 

[old.user4556]

Good post, this is something i've put off doing because I can't be arsed losing the current state of my PC and backing up several gigabytes of important data. Would be good to replicate the system straight onto a bigger drive which I presume this software will allow?

 

[inactionman]

Yep, done it myself with Trueimage a number of times.

Be aware that you can get it cheaper than from the official website, if you look around.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks for that. $50 isn't too bad at all.

RB

 

[Kryten]

Nothing more to add, except I'd just like to point out that TrueImage is indeed an impressive peice of software. I've been speaking to Acronis for a few weeks over email with regards to a system similar to Ghostcast - i.e. deploying Ghost images over networks. Acronis handles Vista and some other odd systems that even the latest versions of Ghost won't touch without batting an eyelid.

Certainly worth the 50 dollars. So whats that, 25 quid on the nose now?

 

[old.user4556]

Fantastic.

Sorry for polluting this thread, but I didn't think that XP would allow ghosting onto another drive, or am I thinking of something else / talking shite / imaging it (delete as appropriate).

 

[inactionman]

Nope it works fine, you may get trouble with product activation but it transfers fine.

 

[Bob007]

Alternative is HD clone. Has a free edition that does small > Larger disc cloning and if you not worried about Backup abilities of Acronis, I'd say look down this route first. But be warned, free edition is deathly slow.

As an owner of both HD clone and Acronis, I'd say HD clone fits what OP wanted better but if you want to be able to do system backups/restores fast as well, Acronis hands down. Its superb.

 

[Bob007]

Also 1 more thing. If you plan on going from IDE HDD to SATA HDD with either program be sure to fit the SATA drive and boot into windows first. This will add any drivers required to the windows installation files to enable it to run/use the SATA HDD on first boot up and will prevent frustration later on

 

[Kryten]

Good show, Bob.

Activation issues when cloning/ghosting is easily sorted out by using microsoft's deployment tool Sysprep - basically this little tool returns the system to a "factory" state, so once it's run and the system powers down - the next power on it re-installs drivers using files on the HDD already and asks again for user credentials and product code/COA.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Bob, I now have my new HDD's on order.

I am going from SATA to SATA, is there likely to be any problem?

What sort of products are likely to need reactivation?

RB

 

[inactionman]

Will be windows/office or anything else that bases it's activation on hard drive geometry. Pain in the ass TBH!

 

[Rubber Bullets]

OK, thanks for all the help so far, I went down the HD Clone route and it worked fine.

My only problem was I think my own fault.

I didn't format the target drive first, (such was my excitement) and so the result is a perfect copy that runs just fine, but only reports my nice shiny 500Gb drive as a 74Gb one!

So in disc management I do a bit of digging and format the rest of the drive, but it does so as a partition. Now I have a 75Gb C: drive and a 400 Gb something else drive.

It gives me the option to delete that partition, will this screw the whole drive? I have so far left that bit blank, will deleting it bring the whole drive back together? If not is there a way to do so?

Many thanks

RB

 

[inactionman]

You need to re-size your cloned partition for the new disk. You may have to clone the whole thing again.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Inactionman,

Can't find any easy way to resize the partition. Wouldn't be the end of the world to reclone from the original, it didn't take too long even at the silly slow speeds available in the free edition of HD Clone.

Tim

 

[inactionman]

This should work:

Ranish Partition Manager. Hard Disk Partitioning Software. Download freeware tools and source code...