[mariaj]

I'm not sure if iv put this in the right place so I'm sorry if its wrong. I have myself a new 750GB hard drive. My old hard drive with windows 7 on is only a 150GB. My question is.......is it possible to copy all the windows files and all the other stuff of my old hard drive and put them on my new one?. I don't want to use the new one as a storage drive because I already have one of those. I want the new one to replace my old 150GB. many thanks maria

[Advertisements]

Hello mariaj

 

The best way is to clone or image the new Hard Drive with a 3rd party software like Arconis or Macrium Reflect.

That's the way I do it. Others here will have different ideas!

[donetao]

Hello mariaj

 

The best way is to clone or image the new Hard Drive with a 3rd party software like Arconis or Macrium Reflect.

That's the way I do it. Others here will have different ideas!

[SleepyDude]

Hi Maria,

 

Yes it's possible. Is the machine a laptop or desktop? Can you tell the brand of the new and old Hard Disk?

[mariaj]

its a desk top pc. I will have to take the sides off and I'll put the brand names up asap. I've read a little about image and cloning but I don't fully understand how to do it?

[donetao]

Hello cloning or creating a image is very simple. I prefer a image. I use Macrium Reflect free.

It is very user friendly. I have used it for years and I probably can answer most of your questions.

http://www.macrium.com/help.aspx

If you are upgrading your hard drive to a larger one, or replacing it due to the original drive starting to fail due to a physical failure, cloning is the easiest method to complete that task.  All you have to do is put the new drive in the computer as a slave or secondary drive and clone the old drive to the new one.  Once the process is complete, switch the new drive to the primary and you are good to go.  I can’t stress this enough; make sure you know which drive you are cloning so you do not overwrite the original drive. 

You can also accomplish the same task by imaging the old drive to an external drive and then switch internal drives. You can then use the  boot CD to restore the image to the new drive.  This is the recommended method of cloning if you are not quite sure what you are doing because it reduces the risk of any accidental data loss.

There are other free 3rd party software. You can down load Macrium Reflect here!

http://filehippo.com...macrium_reflect

Edited by donetao, 07 July 2014 - 01:39 AM.

[mariaj]

Sorry for not being in touch donetao. iv been mad busy with work, tomorrow I get the whole day off so look out my hard drive. can I just ask if my new hard drive as to be connected up as a slave inside the pc or am I able to do the cloning with the new hard drive connect via a hard drive SATA 22pin to eSATA Data USB cable? many thanks maria

[donetao]

Hello! I use a IDE/SATA  USB docking cable. You can hook it up inside your PC if your harness has a duel cable.

I have a cheap Toshiba lap top, so I need the docking cable.

If you need further help, I'm usually hanging around and bored. Love to pass forward things I have learned.

donetao

PS SleepyDude knows his stuff and he will help also!

Here's a link that might answer your question!

http://www.pcworld.c...hard-drive.html

Edited by donetao, 16 July 2014 - 09:15 AM.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

Sorry for not being in touch donetao. iv been mad busy with work, tomorrow I get the whole day off so look out my hard drive. can I just ask if my new hard drive as to be connected up as a slave inside the pc or am I able to do the cloning with the new hard drive connect via a hard drive SATA 22pin to eSATA Data USB cable? many thanks maria

 

If the cable you have is something like this I don't think it will work if your Hard Disk is 3.5" because the cable is only for 2,5" Hard Drives, the ones used on laptops.

 

It's simpler to connect both HDD's inside the machine. By the way there isn't the concept of Master/Slave on SATA Hard Drives only on IDE devices.

[mariaj]

thanks to both of you. my mission will start tomorrow and I'm sure I will be in touch. oh I guess I'm showing my age with the master and slave!!!!! lol

[mariaj]

im pleased to say the cloning is in progress with no hitches as yet!!! could some one explain to me just out of couriosat what it means by "modify the size of each partition to fit the new disk." many thanks maria

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

 

im pleased to say the cloning is in progress with no hitches as yet!!! could some one explain to me just out of couriosat what it means by "modify the size of each partition to fit the new disk." many thanks maria

 

If the destination drive is bigger/smaller comparing to the original drive the program will try to adjust the partitions to the new hard disk size.

When cloning to a bigger HDD I prefer to copy the partitions As is and after that adjust the size of the partitions. To me it doesn't make sense give more space to the System Reserved partition, Recovery Partition (if exists), or other especial partitions.

[mariaj]

can you do this after it as finished cloning? what are the benefits from doing it? excuse my ignorance im learning slowly and i have a curious little mind   

[SleepyDude]

can you do this after it as finished cloning? what are the benefits from doing it? excuse my ignorance im learning slowly and i have a curious little mind   

 

Depending on the software used it could be done before cloning but some are hard to use for that.

Yes you can adjust after cloning. The benefits are full control of the result

 

The Windows Disk Manager can adjust the partitions sizes but have some limitations that's why I use EaseUS Partition Master Free it's more efficient and simpler.

[donetao]

Hello maria!!

 

I feel like I need to post this reply. Every thing SleepyDude is telling you is correct. Once you get your new drive cloned, you need to read this for future protection.

I have never understood why people think they have to have their C Drive cloned and setting in a drawer, unless they are in a very big hurry to get their PC back up and running. I have a 1TB seagate external drive with at least 8 back up images that have been mounted and verified. I'm 99.99% sure that I can restore anyone of those images on my present HD or a brand new HD if my old HD dies, and it will be exactly like it was the day the image was created I consider myself a expert about these things. You mentioned being curious, so here's some thing to think about.

I hope it all goes as planned for you!!

Purpose of Imaging Hard Drives

Imaging a drive is more for backing up purposes.  The best way to use the computer imaging process would be to take an image of a healthy computer, copy that image file and put it in a safe place, then set up an incremental backup on the original image. 

The purpose of copying and saving the original image is in case you incrementally backed up a virus or some other form of scumware on the original image.  If that happened, you would still have the original image for restoration purposes without having to reinstall Windows and all of the other applications that have accumulated on your hard drive. 

Purpose of Cloning Hard Drives

Cloning a drive actually clones the entire contents of the drive to another drive or partition and does not create an image file.  Cloning a drive is useful to upgrade your hard drive or clone a failing drive to a new one.  The only issue with cloning is that you need to have two physical hard drives in the same computer (unless you have an external USB hard drive enclosure on hand). This review shows how to clone a laptop hard drive with a hard drive enclosure.

During the cloning process, you choose which drive you want to clone.  If you accidentally pick the new empty drive, and clone that to the original drive, you will totally overwrite all of your data.  No getting it back, it’s gone.  Been there done that – once.   This is why I recommend using the hard drive imaging process to upgrade a hard drive.  It adds an extra step but it is a safety measure as well. 

The Confusion

You can clone a hard drive using the imaging process. This is where the confusion may set in and the question arises about whether to clone or image. Acronis True Image include the cloning and imaging utilities. 

If you are upgrading your hard drive to a larger one, or replacing it due to the original drive starting to fail due to a physical failure, cloning is the easiest method to complete that task.  All you have to do is put the new drive in the computer as a slave or secondary drive and clone the old drive to the new one.  Once the process is complete, switch the new drive to the primary and you are good to go.  I can’t stress this enough; make sure you know which drive you are cloning so you do not overwrite the original drive. 

You can also accomplish the same task by imaging the old drive to an external drive and then switch internal drives. You can then use the Acronis or Ghost boot CD to restore the image to the new drive.  This is the recommended method of cloning if you are not quite sure what you are doing because it reduces the risk of any accidental data loss.

[mariaj]

oh dear!!!! the cloning finished so i swapped drives, the system as booted up but in computer its saying Local Disk © 90.9GB Free of 148GB? i dont understand as i have just cloned my original c drive to a 750GB. to be clear i have defo got the 750GB wired up to the c drive. HELP