PC Hardware

Guest · Posted: Sat Nov 12, 2005 10:40 pm Post subject: New hard drive & repartitioning

Hello all,

I would like to upgrade the hard disk on my current machine (Dell
Inspiron 8600). However, I don't simply want to copy across the old
disk.

What I want to do is to set up the new disk with several partitions so
as to create a dual boot Windows/Linux system.

The question is---can I copy across the Windows OS, etc., from my old
drive to the new NTFS partition, and have it work properly, without
having to reinstall everything?

Thanks in advance for any advice,

-- Joe

Barry Watzman · Guest

Maybe.

First, you can only do it if the drive letter of all drives with
significant references in the system registry will stay the same. If
the drive letters will change, you are kind of forced into a reinstallation.

Even when the drive letters don't change, however, my results have been
mixed. Sometimes I will Image copy the partition from the source drive
to the replacement destination drive, and it just works, but other times
I've had to do a repair installation, and I have not been able to
determine why the repair installation is need in some instances but not
others.

joseph.wakeling@gmail.com wrote:

Guest

OK. I think keeping the drive number the same isn't a problem---after
all, for effective dual boot doesn't the Windows partition have to be
/hda1/ ?

I'll try it and see. Will it matter that the partition on the new
drive will be smaller than on the old one? & what setup/software would
you recommend to copy the drive image?

Barry Watzman · Guest

Most of the partitioning software can't copy a partition to an area
smaller than the source partition. You could copy it full and then
shrink it later with Partition Magic. Personally, I prefer Drive Image,
whose technology and code are now at the core of the latest version of
Ghost as well (but there were things about Ghost and it's UI that I
didn't like). Either of those or Acronis True Image should work but you
will have to address the size issue.

joseph.wakeling@gmail.com wrote:

Joseph Wakeling · Guest

OK, well, copying and then shrinking is not an issue. It's shrinking
my existing partition that would be a pain because it would mean
risking having to rebuild my drive... :-(

Any hardware I should have, so as to be able to copy direct to the
other laptop drive before placing it in the machine?

Many many thanks for all the useful info. :-)

Barry Watzman · Guest

You would be best served by doing the recovery on a desktop with a 2.5"
to 3.5" IDE adapter (under $10).

Joseph Wakeling wrote:

Joseph Wakeling · Guest

OK. I'll sort it out.

Thank you again! :-D

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