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replacing C drive without reinstalling

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pmv

Lifer
Not sure if this question belongs here or in the memory and storage forum, sorry.

This must be a fairly simple issue that people have done many times before though?

PC has 2 drives. Only have 2 Sata connectors on mobo so can't have any more.

Want to replace the smaller one, which is currently the C drive, i.e. XP boot drive, with a new larger drive.

There must be a simple way to do this without having to reinstall windows and all applications surely? Because I really can't face doing that.

Is there some way I can put the new drive in to replace the current second drive, then copy everything from the existing C drive, then swap things round so I end up with the new drive as the boot drive and the current second drive back as the second drive again (and the current C drive as a spare drive).

It seems quite simple except what I'm not clear about is how to ensure the new large drive ends up bootable with the relevant system files on it. If I do it the obvious way I'm bothered I'll just end up with XP installed on a non-bootable partition.

What do I have to do to make this work?
 
That is one way to do it. Another is simply keep the OS and Program installs on the smaller drive. Store your Downloads and other files on your larger drive. This way, it is easier to backup the OS drive in case a virus messes things up.
 
If you buy a Maxtor, Seagate or Western Digital drive, they come with a CD containing a utility that can "copy system drive" to the new drive. Or you can download the utility from their web site, and the utility would work as long as either the old or new drive is from that manufacturer.
 
Backup the Drive with Acronis TrueImage and restore it to the new drive using the TrueImage Universal Restore.

The Universal Restore plug-in strips the incompatible drivers and loads the OS generic Drivers instead. ( http://kb.acronis.com/content/2149 ).

Thus after Universal Restore Windows Boots up regardless of the chipset (hardware) and adjusts most of the drivers.

Few might Not adjust (Could be Audio and some special devices), but at that point the drivers can be updated from inside the OS with No need to any real changes.

Depending on the size of the Drive you can end up with functional copy of a New computer in 30Min.
 
I've had good luck with Clonezilla: http://clonezilla.org/

I use Clonezilla to do a D2D mirror image. Never had a failure yet! 🙂

Of course, mirror means mirror, sooo... So, if you're doing a mirror image to a larger HDD, then you'll end up with a lot of empty space.

After I do a mirror image to a larger HDD, I use GParted to resize the partition.

Any number of Live CDs contain GParted. I use a Puppy Linux CD most of the time, but SystemRescueCD has more disk utilities: http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Have fun!
 
Hmmm.

Don't have the new drive yet, but so far am thinking either the g4l mentioned above or acronis 'migrateeasy' (rather than trueimage) look the way to go. The guide for the latter looks very straightforward. Put the new drive in alongside the original and clone it across, then remove the original (and put my old second drive back).

I don't think I need to worry much about changing drivers, surely, as the new HD itself will be the only new thing in the system?
 
He does not need to worry about stripping drivers. From what I read, he is replacing the Hard Drive in his current computer. So it is just a drive swap. Nothing complex, just a clone from old drive to new one. Shut down pc after, swap drives and it should boot up fine.
 
every retail packaged drive i've ever bought has come with an imaging utility.

what you do is pull out your current storage drive and replace it with your new drive. fire up the utility (seagate's is really good, it's actually a lite version of trueimage). it'll ask you what you want to do, and you tell it to copy the old drive to the new drive. once that's done, take the old drive out of the computer. put your storage drive back in. then go to the bios and make sure it's set to boot from the new drive. (no need to physically swap the ports, the bios can handle it for you.)

no drivers necessary.
 
Thanks all, g4l seems to have done the job (the drive was OEM I guess as no utility came with it, and migrateeasy looked good but insisted on on-line registration which I couldn't be bothered with). Needed a bit of cleaning up with GPartEd (which makes me nervous as I've trashed a partition table before with that prog), but seems to have worked.
 
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