Help needed in cloning a small HDD onto a bigger one.

[unbiased]

My friend has a HP Compaq desktop with decent enough configuration except the hard disk, which is only 4 GB. It is needed to clone this HDD onto a bigger HDD and use the new HDD as boot up HDD, as 4 GB is too small for installation of further programs. Even the windows XP cannot be updated due to space constraints.

The computer's system CD is not available, therfore I want to clone this HDD to another one of say 250 GB. My questions,

1. Will the cloning allow parttioning of the new HDD prior to cloning?
2. Somebody told me that if you clone a disk it is required that the two HDDs are of same capacity. I doubt it but is it true?
3. Will it be possible to clone this 4 GB disk onto a 50 GB partition of the new HDD and be able to use the remaining 46 GB of the parttition?

Can somebody help me Docs?

 

[EagleKeeper]

Most OEM drives will have a cloning utility that can be downloaded off the Net

Simple to use and very effecient. They can also allow a single or multiple partitions to be created.
The two drives do not have to be compatible makers, only one to use the utility.

 

[bruceb]

You can use the OEM utility as mentioned above or Norton Ghost or Acronis TruImage (which has a free trial period)
In my view the OEM programs do not always work properly. Used one on a friends pc where Ghost did not want to
see the new 500GB drive and while the transfer went somewhat ok, about 100 files (mostly icons) did not copy properly.
I did my laptop 20GB to a 120GB drive with Norton Ghost and it had no issues what so ever.

 

[unbiased]

Thanks Guys. I should confess that I have never used this cloning tool. I have got norton ghost borrowed from a friend. Can somebody tell me in simple english the steps I have to take to use this software for cloning the 4gb HDD to 250 GB HDD's 1st partition(50 GB) out of five partitions, so that the system should boot from the new HDD in future. Also will it be possible to utilize the remaining 46 GB on this aprtition?

 

[bruceb]

Not much you need to do ... Just hookup the new drive in the same computer as the old drive (provided you have a spare IDE or SATA connection as needed) .. then if you want, use a program to make the partition size you want. Then run Norton Ghost to do a CLONE operation from the existing "C" drive to the partition you want to install to on the new drive. Ghost usually runs it's clone operation in DOS mode .. just follow the on screen prompts.

 

[unbiased]

Thanks bruceb for the prompt response. Just one more thing. Do I install Norton Ghost on my hdd and run from there or do I need to make a boot CD/floppy?

 

[bruceb]

Some versions of Ghost can be run from a bootable cd drive. You would need to try your cd from Norton in the drive on bootup and see if you can access ghost from there. If you can you are all set. If not, install Ghost on the old hard drive, and when you run it, it will boot into DOS mode to do the clone. I have my Ghost set to use PC-DOS

 

[unbiased]

Thanks a lot for the help.