Best idea for moving a Windows 7 install from one HDD to another?

[evilsaint]

So, I finally jumped into the fray, downloaded the ISO and blew away my bloated, two year old XP install. At first I was scared out of my wits, but now - I LOVE IT! Anyway, enough aggrandizing...

I installed it on a smaller WD SATA2 drive that I have, with the intent of using my 1.5TB monster for storage, but now I realized that the WD drive only has a 16MB cache, and that I'm a bit of an imbecile. The HDTach scores aren't even close, and honestly, I could even use to sell the WD and maybe buy just stick with the big guy for now, properly partitioned of course.

Anyway, what would be the quickest/easiest way to take the entire W7 RC1 installation from the WD HDD to the Seagate one? Is there any way that I could do an upgrade install from 7 RC1 to 7 RC1, just to the other drive, then format the WD and yank it from my rig?

My only half-competent idea that I could come up with was booting from a BartPE CD/DVD and XCopying all the system directories, but that seems like a hack'n'slash job if I've ever seen one...

***

Cliff's Notes Version

Installed Windows 7 on one hard drive.
Found out second drive is much faster.
Want to move from HDD1 to HDD2 with the least fuss (while preserving program installs, profile settings, custom Gadgets, etc...)

Many thanks in advance

 

[postmortemIA]

you could clone the drive, but good luck with keeping data on your 1.5TB drive

in the end it will take more time to mess with this than to simply make new partition on 1.5TB drive and install w7 there.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA
you could clone the drive, but good luck with keeping data on your 1.5TB drive

in the end it will take more time to mess with this than to simply make new partition on 1.5TB drive and install w7 there.

Cloning it to the larger drive should be pretty easy. You could create 2 partitions on it, one for the O/S, and one for data. I'm not convinced that multiple partitions are a benefit, but the option is always there.

 

[evilsaint]

Maybe this whole "cloning" thing is referring to something else - do you mean creating a partition on the bigger drive identical to the one on the smaller drive, then using whatever software (I have a fully licensed copy of Ghost to use, if necessary) to "clone" the smaller drive onto the same-size partition on the big one?

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: evilsaint
Maybe this whole "cloning" thing is referring to something else - do you mean creating a partition on the bigger drive identical to the one on the smaller drive, then using whatever software (I have a fully licensed copy of Ghost to use, if necessary) to "clone" the smaller drive onto the same-size partition on the big one?

You should be able to clone it to a smaller partition as long as the data takes up less room than the new partition. If I were to create multiple partitions on a 1.5tb drive, I wouldn't use more than 2. 1 for the O/S, and 1 for data. I think I'd go with 200gb for the O/S, and the remainder to the data partition.

 

[evilsaint]

Also, the big drive is just one big partition of ~1400GB usable (was intending to use it for only storage, so...), but it has 600 or so free - would there be any way to shrink it down and make another partition out of the free space?

I'm well versed in a lot of technical chicanery, but when it comes to storage/HDDs, I like to defer to professionals =)

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: evilsaint
Also, the big drive is just one big partition of ~1400GB usable (was intending to use it for only storage, so...), but it has 600 or so free - would there be any way to shrink it down and make another partition out of the free space?

I'm well versed in a lot of technical chicanery, but when it comes to storage/HDDs, I like to defer to professionals =)

Your O/S should be on the first partition for for the extra speed. I'm not an expert on it, but I'd be willing to bet there's software out there that'll let you move the data to the outer most part of the drive, and let you create a partition on the inside. If you have the money, it would be easier to buy a new 1.5tb drive, and start over. You could use a second drive anyway to make backups, and that would save the trouble of having a convoluted data moving scheme.

 

[evilsaint]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: evilsaint
Also, the big drive is just one big partition of ~1400GB usable (was intending to use it for only storage, so...), but it has 600 or so free - would there be any way to shrink it down and make another partition out of the free space?

I'm well versed in a lot of technical chicanery, but when it comes to storage/HDDs, I like to defer to professionals =)

Your O/S should be on the first partition for for the extra speed. I'm not an expert on it, but I'd be willing to bet there's software out there that'll let you move the data to the outer most part of the drive, and let you create a partition on the inside. If you have the money, it would be easier to buy a new 1.5tb drive, and start over. You could use a second drive anyway to make backups, and that would save the trouble of having a convoluted data moving scheme.

Yep, that's *exactly* what I'd like to do (a faster 1TB drive instead, this time), but unfortunately, I don't have money right now...

Anybody have suggestions for a piece of software to do something like this?

Kinda sad that I probably could have backed up the profiles/settings of all my apps in the time that I've spend typing this and have been ready to re-install onto the big drive =)

 

[evilsaint]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: evilsaint
Maybe this whole "cloning" thing is referring to something else - do you mean creating a partition on the bigger drive identical to the one on the smaller drive, then using whatever software (I have a fully licensed copy of Ghost to use, if necessary) to "clone" the smaller drive onto the same-size partition on the big one?

You should be able to clone it to a smaller partition as long as the data takes up less room than the new partition. If I were to create multiple partitions on a 1.5tb drive, I wouldn't use more than 2. 1 for the O/S, and 1 for data. I think I'd go with 200gb for the O/S, and the remainder to the data partition.

That's pretty much what I was thinking, but is there any realistic way to shrink the main partition by 200GB or so? I'm not sure if Partition Magic and all that crap out there can be trusted, especially since I don't have any solid backups to rely on...

*edit* Go figure - the right-click context menu in Disk Management has "Shrink Volume" as an option... Is that new in Vista/W7?

 

[lxskllr]

I've never really fooled with cloning drives much. Every time I've done something like that, I've gone from a smaller drive to larger. I never use Windows functions, so I don't know what it offers. I've used tools from HD manufacturers, and Clonezilla to clone my drives.

 

[evilsaint]

Bump for any last ideas on better ways to do this... or warnings against using Disk Management's built-in "Partition Shrink" function

 

[corkyg]

1. Clone the drive proportionally (smaller to larger.)
2. Boot to the new drive.
3. Shrink the big partition to create unallocated space.
4. Create a new partition in the unallocated space.

My personal preference for this is Acronis TI. Clonezilla will work, as will the OEM utilities (some of them use Acronis.)

 

[evilsaint]

Originally posted by: corkyg
1. Clone the drive proportionally (smaller to larger.)
2. Boot to the new drive.
3. Shrink the big partition to create unallocated space.
4. Create a new partition in the unallocated space.

My personal preference for this is Acronis TI. Clonezilla will work, as will the OEM utilities (some of them use Acronis.)

Wow, thanks for the specific instructions! I should feel like a putz having to ask for something as reasonably simple as this, with as much as I know about PCs in general, but thank you for not making me feel like one