Moving data to smaller drive...

[Hork]

My mother-in-law's computer is showing a bad sector... to be safe, I would like to move the data to another disk. Unfortunately, I don't have much money and would like to move the data to a smaller drive that I have laying around.

The original drive is a 120GB Maxtor and was in a Presario so has been partitioned as C: (PRESARIO) with 92688MB and D: (PRESARIO_RP) with 7337MB. I've used DriveImage XML to make browsable images of both drives on an external drive.

There isn't much data on the C: drive... only 14% is used since all they do is use the computer for internet and email.

I'd like to move the data onto an 80 GB Maxtor drive. However, DriveImage XML won't let me copy the image for C: to a smaller partition, so I can't restore it using that program.

What's the best way to copy (preferably an image copy) the contents of the original C: and D: partitions to a new drive where the C: partition is smaller than the original C: partition?

Or, should I just try to do a low-level format of the old drive and make sure it marks the sector as bad and restore the data to it?

I need to do this with free tools if possible. Thanks!

(Oh yeah... when I ran Chkdsk on the drive and scan the surface it returns "Possibly Damaged Sector, LBA: 6478433, Status: Overwrite SKIPPED, Usage: Not Resolved". I've since used the demo version of HDD Regenerator to fix that sector (it only fixes one), and I'm running chkdsk again now to see what it says.)

 

[Hork]

Can I just create a smaller partition on the new drive and mount the old image and copy files over that way? Or do I need to do something to make sure I don't miss any files?

 

[taltamir]

copying the files over will let you transfer all the data, but windows will not work until you reinstall it.

Normally i would recommend resizing the partition using gparted, and then cloning it using clonezilla... but doing that on a possibly defective drives could end up with all your data lost.
I really don't know what to suggest to you. not having the money to buy any replacement drive that is bigger kinda sucks.

I Would suggest you just do a clean install of windows on the 80GB drive, then transfer the important files only to the new drive from the backup, manually. keep the dying drive for a little while in case you missed some files.
And when you are feel up to it, do a low level format of it and TEST it to see if it is really dying or if it was just a conincidence.

 

[Hork]

gparted wouldn't let me resize the partition since it said one of the sectors was bad. I used ntfsresize with the --bad-sector option to resize it to 60000MB, but then I got a bit lost... It still seems to show up as 92000MB in gparted even though the report indicated it was logically 60000MB.... Do I need to run some other command to actually get the partition to shrink so I can use DriveImage XML to pull a smaller image?

I also used HDD Regenerator trial to fix the single bad sector reported by chkdsk, and it reported success. However, when I go back into gparted it still shows that there is a bad partition and won't let me resize the drive.

 

[taltamir]

I suggest that under no circumstance should you actually resize or mess with the partition because doing so could kill the drive and make you loose all your data...

If you already backed it up to an external image... and you insist on playing with your data's safety...
do a full format... copy that image back to the drive, then resize it.

But I recommend you just do a clean windows install and then transfer the actual specific files and data you need.

 

[RebateMonger]

The good news is that both the Maxtors are likely to fail soon, so your problems will soon be over. There's a reason why Maxtor got sold to Seagate and Seagate dumped all the old Maxtor designs. I don't own a single Maxtor drive of that generation that's still working.

Newegg.com has several brands of 160 GB drives for $40 or so. I strongly recommend you scrounge up the money and move the partition to a new drive. Then trash the 120 GB drive and put the 80 GB drive into an external housing when you find one on sale and use it for making ongoing backups of their data. Just be sure to verify the backups to the 80 GB Maxtor.

 

[taltamir]

honestly i think the best price is for the 500GB drives... 40$ buys you a 40GB drive... 70$ buys you a 500GB drive.. there is a serious case of diminishing returns...

Ofcourse, he might have to get a PCI-SATA card if his computer is old enough.

 

[myocardia]

Umm, guys, all he needs is this MaxBlast software. It's Acronis TrueImage 10.0 (or 10.1), and it's free.


edit: And it will let you copy any size partition to any size partition, as long as the partition you're transferring to has enough space to hold the data you're transferring. It goes by data size, not partition size.