MitchRapp

Let's say I want to move from a 320gb seagate 7200.10 to a 160gb raptor 10000rpm

What would be the best way to clone my current OS/Settings/Etc... (everything)?


Ghost or... is there a very easy boot-cd alternative?

I realise I'm moving from a 320 to a 160, so it is indeed a smaller hard drive.
But I only use it for OS + apps + games (64gb total) ... my files are on external drives.



So what's the easiest way guys

Judas

pangingJR probably has the best solution ... via partition magic or similare boot disc.... so long as both drives are installed..... but it may be tricky.....

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Zardon

when you say "move" i take it you are using the raptor as a boot drive and will use the older slower bigger drive for files etc? or are you losing the older drive and just having the raptor on its own?

Tipstaff

Ghost, and pretty much any cloning software, including Acronis, will allow you to clone from a bigger drive to a smaller one. I do it all the time at the store. Where it gets complicated is when you have multiple partitions on a drive. If that's the case, the best thing to do is clone it partition by partition. By doing this the cloning software, say in this case Ghost, will ask you if you want to resize the partitions beforehand. Ghost will tell you that the old partition is xxxx size, and will also give you the option to resize, or rather tell it what the new size should be. It just takes time, because you have to do it one partition at a time. At the moment I can't remember if you do a disc to disc clone if it will allow you the same option. I think so, but I'd have to wait until tomorrow to verify this.

If the drive is one partition though, it's straight forward. Just do a disc to disc clone. The cloning software will simply clone from one drive to another. It will warn you about the size differences, but it should allow you to continue (I use Ghost to do this all the time.. from smaller to larger, and vice versa).

The only time it doesn't work is when the computer uses some sort of bitlocking, or drive locking to tie the hard drive to the system it's on. In this case it can take a while as it's a bit more complicated to get things cloned properly.

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MitchRapp

Alrighty thanks TipStaff

just FYI
my current hard drive (320gb) is in one partition
no bitlocking or anything of the sort
it's running Vista x64 without the encryption junk from M$

So what was the 100% best solution to make it through a boot-cd instead of having to install software?
Can you recommend just 1 thing?

temeteus82

boot CD with the proper software would do fine.

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MitchRapp

basically I might get ahold of a raptor 10k 160gb dell edition.
I'm thinking it'll be a lot faster than a 7200.10 from Seagate (please correct me if I'm wrong though !)

So from a 320gb to a 160gb means nothing to me because on my drive i keep nothing but the OS, Apps and Games.
My private documents, downloads etc... are all on external drives.

I'm only using around 64 to 66gb of the seagate...that's why I really really don't mind switching to half the size.


I'm going to try Ghost 12 ... unless you recommend something else ! Thanks

BlueMak

It would be better to have your cache on another drive than the C drive. In fact, it would be better if you had your games on a different drive than your C drive and the cache drive.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

MitchRapp

how so?
I could create different partitions on the raptor once it's installed and have the Firefox Cache on 1 small partition of 1gig, the swap file on a 4gig partition and all ... but why games?

BlueMak

not different partitions, different sata drives.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

MitchRapp

it's a possibility
I'll be doing this over the weekend:

Making my new C drive the 10k raptor 160gb sata
Making my old 320gb seagate 7200.10 my new D drive for documents, swap file and download cache

BlueMak

Sounds good to me.
When I said cache, I meant swap file. Which btw, might be better to be a very specific number. Defrag the D drive, then change the swap to D, reboot of course, then defrag again just in case.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

MitchRapp

well that's poop

free edition of HDClone that came with UBCD doesn't do BIG to SMALL hard drive cloning...
enterprise edition (yes sorry I had to try it) doesn't load up

stuck.

MitchRapp

Ghost 12 Hard Disk cloning : after all the setup and starting it, it goes "this feature is not yet implemented"
geebus
even Clonezilla didn't work


I'm tempted to use our work Ghost (rdm) ... but I'm going to try Acronis before

Tipstaff

Look for Hirens BootCD 9.3 (9.4 is the latest, but you may not find it readily available as it's the newest version). It includes Ghost 11, as well as Acronis 8, and ImageCenter 5.6 (ie. Drive Image 2002).

Sorry I can't give you a direct link, but if you Google it you should find a bunch of links.

BTW, I forgot to mention that I double checked the setting in Ghost. When you do a disk to disk clone, right after you've chosen what drives to clone, it will show you as well as allow you to change the "new" size, as well as show you the "old" size. Also, by default Ghost will use the entire "new" size, but you can resize it if you decide you want to partition the drive.

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MitchRapp

I've tried 5 or 6 different apps with none working so I'll look for this Hirens BootCD

Seems like half the apps SAY they can do a copy but actually don't
and the others don't like the fact that I'm going from 320gb to 160gb ... even though I've defragged and triple checked and all my data is in the same corner (66gb of data only)


wish it was as easy as RDM @ work

Methious

I Ghost drives all the time, 12 and 11 are both good, as long as it's not a raid array I use Ghost 9 bootable to a cdrom and clone from there. 12 works with Vista haven't tried the other versions with Vista yet.

MitchRapp

Ghost gave me "feature not yet implemented" when i tried to copy the drive.


if this is a 320gb --> 160gb issue then I'll just wait until SP1 comes out and do a fresh Vista install

it's annoying but meh.

Tipstaff

Even with the one off the Hiren's BootCD? If so, that's very odd, cuz I had to do the exact thing at the store yesterday, and had no problems. Went from a 320GB Seagate to an 80GB drive so that I could do a few tests on the original drive (didn't want to delete the current Windows install by accident). Then I cloned the drive back once I was finished, again with no problems.

If even the Ghost 11 off of Hiren's BootCD did the same thing then I have one other suggestion, but it's a bit more time consuming: Ghost the 320GB drive to an image file on the 160GB drive (edit: first make sure the 160GB drive is formated). After that boot into Windows with both drives hooked up, and copy that image file from the 160GB to the 320GB. After that boot back into Ghost, and Ghost the 160GB drive using the image file. I've had to do this a few times over the years whenever Ghost wouldn't clone, but never due to the issue you're having though. However, it could still come up with the same error since the image file stores info on the original partition/drive size.

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MitchRapp

Ghost 11 FTW

thanks boys