Moving my hard drive (as an image) to a bigger one

firewolfsm

Golden Member
Oct 16, 2005
1,848
29
91
I've actually spent all day trying to get this to work so I'm about to sleep and see if anyone answers by tomorrow, if you have any ideas, please help me out.

I have a 160GB hard drive right now, divided into two 75GB partitions, one for Vista, and the other for my User folder. I'm passing this drive down to someone else and getting a 320GB.

My plan was to make a 90GB partition for Vista, a 150GB for my User folder, and leave 60GB for a new XP install.

So I need to partition the drive, and then move my current C and D drives as images to the new, larger C and D drives (leave an E for XP SP3)

I would do this from Vista, but since I'm using letters C and D right now it won't let me use those while formatting, this will cause problems if I move the images I made from Norton Ghost.

I need a way to move everything on my current hard drive (windows, settings, programs, data) on the new drive and have the same letters. I do have an external drive I can use during the process, any ideas?
 

myocardia

Diamond Member
Jun 21, 2003
9,291
30
91
You're going to have to buy/download some backup software that doesn't run in Windows. I hear that most of the free ones don't work all that well, but I do know that Ultimate Boot CD has backup software that probably works well, since most of the apps on it do.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
27,370
239
106
I would set up the old drive eaxactly as you want it and then use Acronis TI to Proportionally CLONE that drive to the larger drive. Use bootable rescue media to do that, and you will immediately be able to use the new drive with no restoration of images, etc. Think CLONE PROPORTIONALLY.
 

firewolfsm

Golden Member
Oct 16, 2005
1,848
29
91
I would do that but I want to change the partitions. I just found something like the boot cd with a Ghost 11 boot on it, I used Ghost 12 but it should be compatible. I'll try it once I get home.
 

corkyg

Elite Member | Peripherals
Super Moderator
Mar 4, 2000
27,370
239
106
Why not change the partitions first on the smaller drive. Then when you clone proportionally, they will expand.

Or clone as they are - swap drives, boiot and then change the partitions.

It's not a good idea to try and combine those operations.
 

firewolfsm

Golden Member
Oct 16, 2005
1,848
29
91
I tried cloning proportionately and it worked at first, I got to the vista log on screen but when I tried logging in it had issues finding files (I think the drive letters were different.) I just backed it up and reformatted, I gave up. Works now.