Hard drive copying data question

[koocha]

Hi everybody (hello Dr Nick)

So, here's the situation and my theory on it:

My girlfriend has an 80gb drive she's had for years and as got a 160 to replace it as the main drive. She still wants to keep the drive for the videos she shoots.

SO, does it go a little like this...

1. Install the drive as slave on the primary channel (there's a DVD writer on the secondary channel)

2. use partition magic 8 to format it and copy the windows partition from the first drive

3. take out the 80gb drive and install the 160gb as master

4. use the win xp repair console to 'fix' the MBR on the new drive

5. make sure it boots

6. install the 80gb drive as slave

7. boot

?

Cheers

Tim

[arthurleung]

Norton Ghost (or similar tools) and just do Disk to Disk copy

Then create another 80G partition in the free space.

Or alternatively I think Acronis DriveImage can handle partition expand at the same time.

Doubt your method is any good. Windows partition doesn't like being moved without some special help.

[koocha]

I forgot I had ghost. I'll give that a whirl.

Cheers

[Splash]

Yep - Trueimage allows you to clone to another drive and expand the partition at the same time, Ghost (AFAIK, not used it in a while) will only allow the drive clone, so you'll then have to create another partition.

[koocha]

I'll use partition magic to extend it

[Splash]

Cool - all is good then!

[ash_rm]

Ghost 8 and above should expand the partition fine with the default settings. So you shouldn't have to worry about extending it later.

[koocha]

I've got Ghost 2003 oem

[Mike Fishcake]

As far as I can remember, all versions of Ghost I've used for the past 5 years or so have had the opportunity of extending the new partition to whatever size you want.

[koocha]

UPDATE:

I did the disk copy and Ghost automatically extended the partitions to fill the disk. Then used partition magic to change drive letters and all working super duper.

Had to initialise the disk in computer management before Ghost could see it (in win xp mode, not dos)

thanks for your help

[Splash]

Good good - thanks for letting us know about the extension of partitions in Ghost - always good to know this kinda stuff!

[koocha]

Good good - thanks for letting us know about the extension of partitions in Ghost - always good to know this kinda stuff!

Pleasure. I learnt things too. And to think, I was going to do all that in my first post til arthurleung said about Ghost. I completely forgot I had it!