Switching hard drives with vista installed

[randym431]

I'm going to swap out the 100gb drive with vista installed on it, and move to a 320gb. Is there a, or any free cloning programs I could use to avoid reinstalling everything all over or going thru the validation process again with vista? Since the vista is an upgrade from xp, I'd have to install xp first, then re upgrade to vista. Seems like cloning would be much faster, if possible.

Does this cloning process use dos level cloning? Or can it be done with an installed drive clone program?

 

[stash]

CompletePC Backup should work. Check out these guidelines first: http://blogs.technet.com/filec...mplete-pc-restore.aspx

 

[corkyg]

True cloning that uses a bootable CD or DVD or other media is OS independent. Most HDD OEMs provide such software with the HDDs anf it can also be downloaded.

For best cloning results, always do it independent of the OS. Even with good paid stuff like TrueImage 10/4942. Avoid trying to clone from within Windows.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: stash
CompletePC Backup should work. Check out these guidelines first: http://blogs.technet.com/filec...mplete-pc-restore.aspx

Agreed, if your Vista version includes it it should do just what you want.