Hard drive image?

[DLBlank]

Bacicly i have a sata drive with partitions on it (looks like 2 hdds) And i want to take the partitions out so it looks like just one hard drive. Can i just make a cd image or whatever of drive C and be able to restore it once i delete the partitions and make it one hdd again, And windows still boot and every thing just the same? And the second drive/partition dosent eavn have anything on it right now.

Or is there some way i dont know of where i can make the hdd one big hdd w/o loosing any files or anything?

 

[Zugzwang152]

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Bacicly i have a sata drive with partitions on it (looks like 2 hdds) And i want to take the partitions out so it looks like just one hard drive. Can i just make a cd image or whatever of drive C and be able to restore it once i delete the partitions and make it one hdd again, And windows still boot and every thing just the same? And the second drive/partition dosent eavn have anything on it right now.

Or is there some way i dont know of where i can make the hdd one big hdd w/o loosing any files or anything?

Yes you can. Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are the most recommended applications to do an image.

Otherwise you can use something similar to Partition Magic to just remove the second partition, since you say you have nothing on it right now.

 

[DLBlank]

Originally posted by: Zugzwang152

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Bacicly i have a sata drive with partitions on it (looks like 2 hdds) And i want to take the partitions out so it looks like just one hard drive. Can i just make a cd image or whatever of drive C and be able to restore it once i delete the partitions and make it one hdd again, And windows still boot and every thing just the same? And the second drive/partition dosent eavn have anything on it right now.

Or is there some way i dont know of where i can make the hdd one big hdd w/o loosing any files or anything?

Yes you can. Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are the most recommended applications to do an image.

Otherwise you can use something similar to Partition Magic to just remove the second partition, since you say you have nothing on it right now.

Now if i use partition magic to remove the second partition will the first (drive C) be the entier size of the drive? - what u loose anyway

 

[Kaido]

I wrote a tutorial on using Norton Ghost. It's available here:

http://www.wiredbynature.org/comp/ghost/index.html

Enjoy

 

[DLBlank]

Now with that notran ghost can the cd/dvd be booted and copy all files and such from there then like restart and its done? Or am i going to need another hdd with an os on it?

 

[DLBlank]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I wrote a tutorial on using Norton Ghost. It's available here:

http://www.wiredbynature.org/comp/ghost/index.html

Enjoy

I just looked over that tutorial and it dosent look to be what i need to do, I need to make a back up of my current drive and every thing on it not install windows and make a back up of windows with nuthing on it.. Would i need to just start at step one or something?

 

[DLBlank]

Oh ya and i dont have a windows xp instlation cd,...my uncle have it and the key.. Incase that makes a diffrentce in what i need to do

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Now with that notran ghost can the cd/dvd be booted and copy all files and such from there then like restart and its done? Or am i going to need another hdd with an os on it?

Norton Ghost will copy everything off the drive to a bootable CD or DVD. It will only copy C:\ if you want it to. You do not need the original Windows installation disc or the key to use Norton Ghost. Norton Ghost simply backs up everything on the selected drive to a bootable disc. I've never tried it on a drive with partitions, but I'd imagine if you told it to copy C:\ and then restored that disc on the entire drive, it would eliminate that second partition.

 

[DLBlank]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Now with that notran ghost can the cd/dvd be booted and copy all files and such from there then like restart and its done? Or am i going to need another hdd with an os on it?

Norton Ghost will copy everything off the drive to a bootable CD or DVD. It will only copy C:\ if you want it to. You do not need the original Windows installation disc or the key to use Norton Ghost. Norton Ghost simply backs up everything on the selected drive to a bootable disc. I've never tried it on a drive with partitions, but I'd imagine if you told it to copy C:\ and then restored that disc on the entire drive, it would eliminate that second partition.

One last question, Can ghost just copy every thing to another hdd and have it exsactly the same and be able to boot windows and such?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: whatever6750

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Now with that notran ghost can the cd/dvd be booted and copy all files and such from there then like restart and its done? Or am i going to need another hdd with an os on it?

Norton Ghost will copy everything off the drive to a bootable CD or DVD. It will only copy C:\ if you want it to. You do not need the original Windows installation disc or the key to use Norton Ghost. Norton Ghost simply backs up everything on the selected drive to a bootable disc. I've never tried it on a drive with partitions, but I'd imagine if you told it to copy C:\ and then restored that disc on the entire drive, it would eliminate that second partition.

One last question, Can ghost just copy every thing to another hdd and have it exsactly the same and be able to boot windows and such?

Yes

 

[DLBlank]

Now if i just copy every thing to another hdd will nortan leave every thing on drive C alone so i can try and boot from the backup hdd to make sure it worked and incace it dident work i will still have evry thing the way it was on C?

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Now if i just copy every thing to another hdd will nortan leave every thing on drive C alone so i can try and boot from the backup hdd to make sure it worked and incace it dident work i will still have evry thing the way it was on C?

That sounds like a good idea. Here's how it works in a nutshell:

-you have Windows installed on your computer, with all your programs, drivers, and settings.
-You use Ghost to create a mirror image of all of that data, which in turn is put on a bootable CD or DVD.
-That disc becomes a custom Windows installation disc for that specific computer.
-Iif you decide to use a different hard drive, you can use that disc to reinstall Windows exactly as it was when you made the disc.

If you have a spare hard drive, I would recommend making an image of your C:\ using Ghost, then unplugging that drive and replacing it with your backup drive, then restoring the image to that backup hard drive (make sure to remove all files from it because everything on it will be erased). If it works, you're in business! If not, you still have your old drive with your Windows installation on it that you can use. It sounds like a good precaution to take in your situation.

 

[tuteja1986]

Acronis True imaging pawns : )

 

[spherrod]

Originally posted by: whatever6750

Originally posted by: Zugzwang152

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Bacicly i have a sata drive with partitions on it (looks like 2 hdds) And i want to take the partitions out so it looks like just one hard drive. Can i just make a cd image or whatever of drive C and be able to restore it once i delete the partitions and make it one hdd again, And windows still boot and every thing just the same? And the second drive/partition dosent eavn have anything on it right now.

Or is there some way i dont know of where i can make the hdd one big hdd w/o loosing any files or anything?

Yes you can. Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are the most recommended applications to do an image.

Otherwise you can use something similar to Partition Magic to just remove the second partition, since you say you have nothing on it right now.

Now if i use partition magic to remove the second partition will the first (drive C) be the entier size of the drive? - what u loose anyway

I would recommend buying Partition Magic - it pays for itself when doing things like this. It will simply delete the unused partition and you can then add all unused space to your C drive.

 

[DLBlank]

Originally posted by: spherrod

Originally posted by: whatever6750

Originally posted by: Zugzwang152

Originally posted by: whatever6750
Bacicly i have a sata drive with partitions on it (looks like 2 hdds) And i want to take the partitions out so it looks like just one hard drive. Can i just make a cd image or whatever of drive C and be able to restore it once i delete the partitions and make it one hdd again, And windows still boot and every thing just the same? And the second drive/partition dosent eavn have anything on it right now.

Or is there some way i dont know of where i can make the hdd one big hdd w/o loosing any files or anything?

Yes you can. Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image are the most recommended applications to do an image.

Otherwise you can use something similar to Partition Magic to just remove the second partition, since you say you have nothing on it right now.

Now if i use partition magic to remove the second partition will the first (drive C) be the entier size of the drive? - what u loose anyway

I would recommend buying Partition Magic - it pays for itself when doing things like this. It will simply delete the unused partition and you can then add all unused space to your C drive.

So it can add the extra space to drive C, well that sounds alot easyer for what i need to do right now.

I got Acronis True Image as ppl seam to say its alot better than ghost and i used it to copy drive c exsactly but when trying to boot from the backup drive i get a error saying "disk boot error please insurt windows instlation disk", something like that anyway i dont remember what exsactly. But Acronis finished copying dident have any errors so i dont get why its not wanting to boot. I have the backup hdd on ide chanel 1 and should be master as noting els is on ide channel 1 i have 2 cd drives on channel 2 thow. I should also note that i tryed to install MCE5 on the hdd im useing for backup and it dident want to work, would format copy files and such restart then i would just get a disk read error, and when i tryed to install i disconected my main hdd to try and keep form haveing any conflicts with two instlations booting or whatever.

Any one know what might be causing this?

Sorry about the spelling.

 

[oog]

i don't know why you're getting those problems with acronis. i've never used it myself.

i can say that partition magic will do what you're asking -- deleting a partition and adding it's space to another one.

 

[DLBlank]

Originally posted by: oog
i don't know why you're getting those problems with acronis. i've never used it myself.

i can say that partition magic will do what you're asking -- deleting a partition and adding it's space to another one.

I dont think its acronis as i havent been able to get any os to boot from this hdd, 2 diffrent MCE5 cds and now the copy of my main drive. Could it be the hdd? Also theres no jumpers on the back of the hdd where u would pic master or slave, i dont know if that would matter any thow becuse theres nothing on the ide channel that the hdd is on.

 

[DLBlank]

i got partition magic and it gave me a warning saying i should not use it on my main drive.. Some thing about the drive geometry..

EDIT: nvm its saying my second drive is the one messed up..

 

[DLBlank]

Ok i used partition magic and it worked PERFICT :-D

Did exsactly what i wanted no problems at all.

Easy to use also.