New hard drive want to use a system image.

[Cyrus9008]

I'm having trouble finding articles on my exact situation online so hope you guys can help out and couldn't find anything with the search button here. so here's the issue:

I'm tired on reinstalling windows I just did it after my new PC build but I got a little more money and bought a new hard drive that should be coming on Wednesday. The HDD is a Seagate Barracuda 1TB 64mb cache 4k sector design(http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840) Now with my current 512 sector design will I have a problem creating a system image and installing new image on my 4k design HDD?

Also I tried using Windows 7 Pro to create a system Image and backing it up to a different HDD(currently I have 2 HDDs, a 1tb that my OS is installed to and a 2tb for storage) and when I try to create the image and put it on the 2TB HDD there isn't even an option for me to do so. The drag down menu doesn't show either of my HDD's to use to back up the image.

Do I need third party software to do this? If I do what do you suggest I use?

I've never done this before, creating a system image and installing it to a new HDD while all HDDs are plugged in. What I mean is once all 3 drives of mine are installed in the boot up menu is it going to show 2 versions of windows 7 installed for me to choose from? I just don't understand the logistics, I will continue to search online for what to do, thanks guys and gals.

 

[BFG10K]

Seagate should have a cloning utility on their website which should automatically align the cloned image to 4K format.

The order which the system looks at your drives is controlled in the BIOS. The first drive it finds in that list with an OS will be booted. You can change the boot order in your BIOS once all of the drives are plugged in.

 

[Cyrus9008]

Awesome thanks hopefully Seagate has some sort of cloning software, thanks BFG!

 

[BFG10K]

Pretty much everyone uses Acronis and it should automatically align to 4K. I used the Western Digital version to clone my OS from a Caviar Black to a Hitachi 4K drive, and it automatically aligned it.

I then cloned that OS image from the 4K Hitachi back to another 512 sector Caviar black, and things are working perfectly fine to this day.

 

[Cyrus9008]

right, I downloaded a few different software solutions but just got Acronis. Hopefully this one isn't to confusing. Some of the software I'm looking has several different options I can choose from but sound so similar to eachother I can't figure out which one I should be using. hopefully that Acronis is clear cut to the point.

 

[corkyg]

I suggest the following procedure with Acronis. Have it create bootable Rescue Media." Boot to that, and then clone your old drive to the new drive. Doing it from within Windows sucketh - it has to reboot and do it from Command Prompt, which is not cool. The Resc ue Media boot gives you a really nice Linux-based GUI and does the job faster with less chance of error.

 

[Cyrus9008]

Ok cool thanks corky, when my new hdd comes in tmrw I'll do that