Moving system drive

[klaatu]

I have a PC with two drives, XP Pro is installed on drive C. I'd like to remove C from the system, and I was hoping I could somehow copy its contents to drive D by repartitioning D to make a separate partition for the old C drive, which it would then boot from. Is this possible, with the right software - Norton Ghost or something?

 

The drives are: C = 75GB: 19GB used, 56Gb free. D = 150GB: 86GB used 64GB free.

 

I'd like to make a new partition on D of about 30GB and copy the C drive to that, if possible.

 

I know I could reinstall XP on the new partition, but I was hoping to avoid reinstalling all my software.

 

Steve

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok the problem that you have with trying to transfer data over is that all the MOBO drivers etc are on it - there is a facility within windows to do this I think its in the control panel.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

The thing is Klaatu you are making a backup image only, it's not like a hard copy of windows.

Windows would still have to be on C: to ghost the image back to.

 

Installing Windows to a drive with a letter other than C: is quite a different matter.

[klaatu]

But if I repartition my second drive so that the new partition is at the start of the drive, then that can become drive C (when the old one is removed), can't it?

[Guest Wolfeymole]

No because it's not a fully working operating system.

The new drive would become E or another letter depending how many other drives like optical, memory card readers etc were involved.

 

You can't just make a backup image then dump C: and boot from it, it just doesn't work that way.

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Notice how these drive letters are all over the place, this has happened because of when they were installed.

A new drive will automatically be bumped up the next alphabetical letter.

[RandyL]

Whether the drive is seperate or a partioned drive you would still need to install Windows to it first and yes the drive would have to have the same letter. After that you could image back your backup if the drive letters were the same.

 

If it were otherwise your registry files would not point to it. No you cannot just copy Windows to a new drive without installing. It works that way for a reason. Microsoft made sure of that years ago. Hardware, OS, Validation etc all come to mind.

 

Create your image. Setup your partion properly. Install Windows to it. Restore the image.

[Dalo Harkin]

You can change the letters of the drives via the control panel and then the disk management you have to make sure that if you are rearranging them that you make sure you change the BIOS setting for the C DRIVE to be at the top.

you can also change optical drives in this way -

[RandyL]

Note: If the image was made with the drive letter C then the OS will also have to be installed on C to re-image.

 

I don't think you can rename the drive Windows is installed on if you want Windows to function.

[Dalo Harkin]

You can't for the Image to work no.

I was referring more to the other storage drives, and opticals

[Poconos]

Unless I missed something, read the thread several times, this is easy. If I read the original post right all he wants to do is get the existing OS on his drive-C and move it to a partition on another physical drive, then remove the original C. Done this many times with Acronis.

One way...

--With Acronis make a bootable CD.

--make an image of the original C-drive to some external media.

--Copy any data you want to save from the 2nd drive to external media

--Disconnect original C-drive.

--Make sure new drive is the master

--Restore the image to that drive...Acronis lets you partition to whatever size you want, in this case 30G. Make sure the MBR is restored too.

--Format the unused space which may show as D or some other letter.

--Copy saved data to the new formatted drive.

 

If you really want to get ambitious Acronis Disc Director Suite makes the partitioning and formatting easier but I think it can all be done with Acronis True Image.

Al

 

Forgot to mention that on the first boot on the new drive, windows may put up a message that new hardware was found. Just let it do its thing.

Edited July 25, 2008 by Poconos