creating new boot disk

[Denman]

Right, i want to upgrade my 80gb harddrive to 160 gb. i have both drives and can run them simultaneously.
Is there any working software for copying the whole partition on one drive to the other?
i tried maxtor something or other but it got about 20% then said to try again after defragging and scandisking, which i have done.
any help is appreciated in advance

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by Denman

Right, i want to upgrade my 80gb harddrive to 160 gb. i have both drives and can run them simultaneously.
Is there any working software for copying the whole partition on one drive to the other?
i tried maxtor something or other but it got about 20% then said to try again after defragging and scandisking, which i have done.
any help is appreciated in advance

so you need to copy the partition table, partitions, and MBR without breaking the addressing byte size? I'm not sure you can.

There's a difference in how sectors are addressed in an 80GB drive and a 160GB one. So a straight copy may mean that you can only access the first 127GB (?) of disk space.

[Venkatesh]

For the purposes of this answer, I am going to assume that your 80GB (current boot and main) drive is an IDE disk, on the first channel, and connected as master. And I am going to assume that the new 160GB disk (the master-to-be) is an IDE disk on the first channel, connected as slave. I am also going to assume each disk is set up with one large partition, the whole size of the disk.

First, backup anything that is important. You can never have too many backups.

Second, download a Knoppix linux CD and burn that image. Knoppix is a LiveCD, a disc that contains a version of Linux which does not need to be installed. If you are familiar with linux, good. It will really help while doing this.

You will need to boot into Knoppix and mount your hard drives. To do that, boot from the CD, open a terminal window once KDE has loaded, and type:

su (switches to root user)
mkdir /1 (makes a directory called 1 in the root area)
mkdir /2 (makes a directory called 2 in the root area)
mount /dev/hda1 /1 (mounts your existing hard disk in /1)
mount /dev/hdb1 /2 (mounts your new hard disk in /2)
cd /2 (move to /2 directory)
tar -cvzf 1.tgz /1 (archive /1 into a .tar.gz file)
mv 1.tgz 1.tar.gz (rename 1.tgz to 1.tar.gz)
gunzip 1.tar.gz (ungzip 1.tar.gz)
tar -xvf 1.tar (unpack that tar file)

The reason I recommend you to use tar rather than a direct copy is simple. You can store that 1.tar.gz file on another computer or a reliable medium, and have a record of your computer which you can restore from in case of disaster. After you are done with the above steps, you are free to swap the positions of your IDE devices. You will need to boot using a Windows 2000/XP install CD into the recovery console and run "FIXMBR", but then the swap will be done.

This is not an exercise to be taken lightly. If you did not understand any step above, do not try it.

Edit: I forgot about Norton Ghost. It should be able to do the whole process automagically. I have never used it and cannot comment on its use(ful/less).

[Kevin Sevcik]

I highly recommend the Ultimate Boot CD

It's a compendium of useful utilities on one bootable CD. I think in this case, you can use HD Clone, as it says it supports copying one drive to a larger drive.

EDIT: after copying, use one of the partition resizing tools to claim all the extra space on the HD.

[Greg Needel]

very very easy

format the new HD into 2 partitions both NTFS (80 gb each)

go get a copy of norton ghost and you can do 1 of two things

you can ghost the hard drive straight to each other or you can create a ghost image of your drive then burn that image to the new drive very simple.


you might also want to get a copy of partition magic it is also a good tool if you need to modify your partition sizes

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Originally Posted by Denman

Right, i want to upgrade my 80gb harddrive to 160 gb. i have both drives and can run them simultaneously.
Is there any working software for copying the whole partition on one drive to the other?
i tried maxtor something or other but it got about 20% then said to try again after defragging and scandisking, which i have done.
any help is appreciated in advance

Stephen,
When I upgraded the drive in my notebook I used a kit from Drive Solutions and this software came with it. EZ GIG II
http://www.apricorn.com/product_details.php?ID=381
I loaded the cd and ran it, followed the instructions and walked away and went to dinner. It will make copies of partitions as well. When complete you just install the drive as the first bootable and turn the system on. I followed this with Partition Magic to divide the drive into useable sections. First related stuff lives on E:

[Kevin Sevcik]

I'll note here that the Ultimate Boot CD is free, while norton ghost and partition magic will cost you various amounts to try. So I think all you stand to lose from trying it is however long it takes.

[Mike AA]

Originally Posted by Denman

Right, i want to upgrade my 80gb harddrive to 160 gb. i have both drives and can run them simultaneously.
Is there any working software for copying the whole partition on one drive to the other?
i tried maxtor something or other but it got about 20% then said to try again after defragging and scandisking, which i have done.
any help is appreciated in advance

Out of curiosity, why not just keep both harddrives installed and use both? You can never have too much storage!

[Michael Hill]

Ghost IS very awesome for 2 normal hard drives hard drives. For some reason, ghost does not like USB external hard drives. I know it should handle them seemlessly, but when I tried to install a version of the (still beta) Windows XP 64-bit edition, I found all my drivers were messed up (like I expected). But...when I tried to go back to normal XP, I found the ghost didn't save onto the external USB drive. Therefore, I lost everything. Luckily it is a fairly new laptop and I didn't have a lot of irreplacable things, but it was still a monkey-butt to install my CAD software again.

[Denman]

Hi
Thanks Kevin Sevcik. It worked ! (well sort of. i still need to find my copy of partition magic ... i know i have it around here somewhere..... (even if its like a year or so old))
Thanks everyone

Stephen

(oh and i'm giving the old hard drive to my brother , as i'm too skint to buy another one for his pc i'm building.)

Thread can be locked if needed to be now

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by Denman

Hi
Thanks Kevin Sevcik. It worked ! (well sort of. i still need to find my copy of partition magic ... i know i have it around here somewhere..... (even if its like a year or so old))

You need the latest version of Partition Magic to use it in XP. I know my version of 6 fubared my computer when I tried to use it anyways.


Wetzel