How do I swap out my non-OS HDD?

[radhak]

So I have a spanking new HDD of 1TB, and wish to swap it for the 120GB one I have in my desktop; but I want it to be my images/video drive, which is currently held in my PATA drive.

My current cofig of HDDs with their assigned drive letters is :

Drive 0, SSD, SATA : C and D. C has the OS (Win 7 Pro)

Drive 1, SATA : E and F. A total of 120 GB, want to replace for more space (ie, the drive does not have any problems)

Drive 2, PATA : 320 GB split into I and J, works fine too, will stay.
​

After the change, it should be

Drive 0, SSD, SATA : C and D. stays the same.

Drive 1, SATA : 1 TB in I and J, with data from drive 2.

Drive 2, PATA : 320 GB now renamed E and F, with data from old drive 1.
​

I only have two SATA ports, so am forced to dump the current drive 1, but my image directories are on Drive 2, so ultimately, my new 1TB will need to be assigned I and J, while the PATA will need to be assigned E and F.

I was thinking : I have an external drive of 1TB with enough space, so I'll

a. back up the E/F, shut down m/c
b. disconnect drive 1, connect the new HDD
c. boot, copy over content from drive 2 (I and J) to the new drive 1
d. wipe drive 2, copy over E/F content from backup to it
e. reassign drive letters
f. be happy
​

Of course, my problem is that all my program will get confused. I am worried about iTunes and Picasa now, and have to check what else.

Will it help if I don't start those programs until all the changes are done? Or will I need to worry about some hidden links that will get screwed up in step C ? How about if I only boot in safe-mode in between?

Or any other way?

 

[Dahak]

Pretty much the steps that you said you are going to do should work fine.
as for booting into safe mode, you should not really need to, but if you have some programs like itunes that auto start it might just give an error saying cant find xxxx or will not have the correct data until the letters are swapped back

 

[radhak]

Good point - I should disable all my startup programs while doing this swap.