Copying contents of old hd to a new one - without windows

Hey i'm not sure if im posting in the right forum, apologies if i'm not.

In my computer I've got two hard drives
C:/ holds windows and files
D:/ only holds files

I've just bought a new larger hard drive to replace the D:/ drive. Obviously to do this i'd need to have both of these drives in the pc. That means i'd have a blank hard drive, and D:/ with just files on it.

How would I be able to copy across all the contents of the files in the old drive to the new one? Since I won't be able to boot into windows to use a program? Is there any bootable software discs that will allow me to do this? If so can anyone reccomend a simple solution.

Mayan

EDIT: Thanks everyone i hooked it upto the cd drive ide cable and power and can see it in windows thanks!
This thread can be deleted/closed now.

Something like maxblast (from Mator, but works on many drives) or any of the other HD manufacturers utiilties (check your new drives makers web site), may be able to do this (it work be called 'cloning').

You don't say if they are sata or pata, but if you have another port available, you could install your new drive as 'E' format and copy over your files from within windows, then just take out your 'D' drive.

Any LiveCD from Linux would work.

Or an external enclosure for the drive.

But I agree with vinnyT what is stopping you put a third drive in the machine? If you don't have enough IDE connectors you could always temporarily disconnect the optical drive while you copy stuff across.

Hey thanks for the replies, I don't have another hard drive bay so thats why i couldn't put it straight in. I didn't know the optical drives used the same connection i'll have a look and see if i can plug the other hdd in.

Also I have the ubuntu livecd, i'm not familiar with linux so what would I have to do to let it see all my drives and clone one drive to another?

Mayan

You don't need another bay, I usually just let it dangle while I whizz things over.

Boot the LiveCD, mount the drives and then copy one to the other.

Thinking about it, that may not work, you may need write permissions and with NTFS that's not straight forward.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

I usually just let it dangle while I whizz things over.

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:bowdown:

Yes you don't need another drive bay. Just need the ide and power cables to go to the new drive whilst it's outside the case. Usually you can run 2 devices from one ide slot/cable.

So turn everything off, open case, look for power and ide cable, plug into new drive. Make sure the drive which is outside the case is resting on something and not just dangling by the ide and power cables. Boot and windows should see the drive. Configure if need be in Disk Management and then copy the files across. When copying is complete, turn off and switch the new drive for the old. Voila!

NB. You also now have a spare drive (your old D ) that still has all your old files on.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mycarsavw

You don't need another bay, I usually just let it dangle while I whizz things over.

Boot the LiveCD, mount the drives and then copy one to the other.

Thinking about it, that may not work, you may need write permissions and with NTFS that's not straight forward.

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I know the prioblem is resolved, but you could use dd and make a bit copy of one from the other.

dd old_device new_device

Quote:

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Originally Posted by peterb

I know the prioblem is resolved, but you could use dd and make a bit copy of one from the other.

dd old_device new_device

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That's the one!

I used a GUI for dd when I was recovering a broken drive. The name escapes me at the moment though.

EDIT: I still think there are write permission issues with NTFS structures though, not sure of the exact issue?

It is a direct bit by bit copy - it doesn't interpret the data structures at all so the underlying FS is irrelevant - it is just a data stream.