hard drive cloning and formatting

[browser]

I have got an external hard drive (250GB). I need to format my internat hard drive of (120GB). Both are NTFS.

I would like to clone the 120GB hard drive where I have all my software onto the 250GB, I would also like to have my operating system in a separate partition if possible.

Also, is there a way of formatting the hard drive while keeping the OS? or would I have to re-clone the OS back to the 120GB after?

How would I go about doing all this if it's possible?

[david02]

edit...ehhhrr... make sure that your BIOS can boot up from external drives before doing anything. I am not sure if that is possible maybe someone else knows



I asume you have win xp

I think the easiest way is to first make partitions on the new drive using diskmanagment

for more help see

http://www.webtechgeek.com/How-to-Pa...Windows-XP.htm

then use a cloning tool like Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation or so to clone the drive to the new partition

http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/co...oftware-2.html


and after that manually move all your other data files to the other partition. ofcourse leave the installed proggies folders were the are

If you make for instance two partitions and you have windows installed on c: of the old drive, clone the OS to the first partition of the new drive , which will be the new c drive

I did not try it myself so ofcourse check first if everything works by booting up with only the new drive before formatting the older drive

[browser]

edit: decided not to create a partition for OS coz I read it decreases performance and haven't heard many pros

[lynx]

edit: decided not to create a partition for OS coz I read it decreases performance and haven't heard many pros

I don't know where you heard that, it doesn't affect performance at all.

My recommendation would be to create a partition for OS and programs ONLY. The advantage is that you have a small partition that you can easily back up, so that when it eventually fails you can very rapidly restore your system. It doesn't take long to re-install the OS, but finding and re-installing all the software is a total PITA.

Make an exact clone of the partition first, then work on moving data out of the original and reducing its size. Keep the cloned partition until you've finished.

[browser]

So I would need to move the folders of all my programs and the windows folder?

[lynx]

You can't do it just by copying or moving the files while Windows is running, you need to use some sort of partition management software such as Ghost 2003 (not Ghost 9).

I suggest you leave the OS and software on the internal drive, but some movement is possible to give you the optimum layout. Copying the partition off the internal drive and back is a necessary part of the operation. The diagrams below will give you an idea of whats involved, but the sizes of the partitions are not to scale.

Starting point:
Int |-OS & Pgms-Data-Free-----|
Ext |-No Partition----------------------------------------|

Make a partition on your external drive, but leave room for a second partition to take a copy of your internal drive. Move the data from your internal drive to this new partition.
Int |-OS & Pgms-Free----------|
Ext |-Data---||-No Partition-----------------------------|

Now use software such as Ghost 2003 to make a copy of internal partition onto another partition on your external drive for security purposes, so that you can restore everything if it all goes wrong.
Int |-OS & Pgms-Free----------|
Ext |-Data---||-OS & Pgms-Free----------||-No Partition-|

Now delete the partition on your internal drive, and copy the OS partition back from the external drive. The new partition gets reformatted at the same time. When you do this you can make the partition on the internal drive much smaller than it was originally.
Int |-OS & Pgms-||-No Partition-|
Ext |-Data---||-OS & Pgms-Free----------||-No Partition-|

Check that everything works.

If it does, you can make a second partition on your internal drive, delete the security partition on your external drive and make the data partition on your external drive big enough to occupy the whole drive.
Int |-OS & Pgms-||-New Partition-|
Ext |-Data----------------------------------------------|

[browser]

Thanks a lot...will do....

I assume Partition Magic 8 will work?

[lynx]

Thanks a lot...will do....

I assume Partition Magic 8 will work?

I don't see any reason why not.

In fact you can probably just shrink the OS partition without moving it from one drive to the other and back again, although that won't format the partition. I'd still make a security copy though.

Why do you want to format the partition in the first place?
If someone told you it will improve performance then forget it.

[browser]

i'm moving it to another (my dads) computer so felt like giving it a fresh start