Changing Primary (System) Hard Drive with Vista

[TaylorD]

I cant find any program that will clone or image the 250gb on my primary HD (total space 750gb) to a 500gb partition on a 1.5tb drive. It would all fit, but a simple copy procedure omits or cannot access most files, and leaves the MBR all screwy.

Is there a simple way to do this?

I tried DiscWizard from Seagate (essentially Acronis True Image) and it doesn't work at all for whatever reason.

Would love any ideas, I am considering just a clean install, might be about time anyway.

 

[mechBgon]

If it's Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, I believe you could use the built-in full-system backup/restore capability for that.

 

[corkyg]

Acronis True Image will only work on Vista if it is Version 11 or newer. I think the Seagate freebie is version10. But, you can back up and restore and also create and adjust partitions with Vista disk management tools.

 

[TaylorD]

maybe I am missing something here:

re: Acronis/Seagate software. If I make a bootable CD, it freezes upon booting. If I run it in windows, it proceeds to restart windows then report that the partitions have changed and exit out without doing anything.

My ultimate goal here is to have the same C drive with the same OS and settings. Currently it is taking up 250gb of a 750gb drive. I want to migrate to a 500gb partition on a 1.5tb drive. I cannot just copy the files over, so I was hoping there might be a utility capable of doing this...

 

[corkyg]

What you want to do is clone your 750 drive to the 1.5TB drive. Don't create the partition on the 1.5 drive. If you clone proportionally, TI will do all of that for you. If your bootable CD freezes after loading, then it is running into a problem with partitions.

If you clone "As Is," the result will be the same 250GB partition on the 1.5TB drive. Then you can use Vista's Drive Manager to expand the partition, etc.

 

[TaylorD]

right, here's where it is complicated. I have a 750gb hd with only one partition. I want to migrate the 250gb of data from that 750gb drive into what will ultimately be 500gb partition on the new drive.

I have tried even to allow TrueImage to delete existing partitions on the new drive. I have tried AS IS as well as PROPORTIONAL. But it always either freezes on booting up or tells me there is something changed with the partitions (the disc being copied to us not partitioned or formatted or anything...)

So basically, I am comfortable with the idea of resizing the partitions later on, I just cant even get DiscWizard (TrueImage) to copy anything.

 

[corkyg]

Sounds like there is something wrong on your source disk. Have you run CHKDSK on it with the /f anf /r switches?

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