Cloning a hard drive to a smaller drive

Stan_Lite · 23-02-2010, 01:36

Well. That worked an absolute treat.

Copied and pasted the Windows partitions to the portable HDD, switched over to the new rig and copied from the portable HDD to the new rig. When I booted up, I got the "DISK BOOT FAILURE...." message. Booted from the Windows 7 disk and did the repair boot thing and managed to boot into Windows.

Because it was all new hardware, Windows had to find and install new drivers etc but it did all that on it's own (the only thing I had to do was uninstall the Nvidia drivers from the old rig and install ATI drivers for the new rig).The whole process took about 2 hours altogether but a lot of that will have been down to copying the Windows partition image to and from a USB drive. Now I have the new rig set up the way I want it, I can attach the laptop HDD internally and one of the currently raided drives and the transfer should be a lot quicker. Everything was there - Winamp with all my preferences, Firefox with all my favourites etc. Avast still working away etc etc. Everything I had working on the old PC now works on the new PC with virtually no interference

I ****ing love GParted. I've always thought it was a very useful tool but I see now how good it really is. For a straight transfer, internally, of a Windows install, I reckon it would do it in less than an hour. If I was doing it manually with Windows, by the time I uninstalled Windows and re-installed it and installed all of my programs, I reckon I'd be looking at 5-6 hours.

I raise my glass to the creator of GParted

23-02-2010, 01:36	#10
Stan_Lite Stan, Stan the FLASHER MAN! Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: In bed with your sister Posts: 5,483	Well. That worked an absolute treat. Copied and pasted the Windows partitions to the portable HDD, switched over to the new rig and copied from the portable HDD to the new rig. When I booted up, I got the "DISK BOOT FAILURE...." message. Booted from the Windows 7 disk and did the repair boot thing and managed to boot into Windows. Because it was all new hardware, Windows had to find and install new drivers etc but it did all that on it's own (the only thing I had to do was uninstall the Nvidia drivers from the old rig and install ATI drivers for the new rig).The whole process took about 2 hours altogether but a lot of that will have been down to copying the Windows partition image to and from a USB drive. Now I have the new rig set up the way I want it, I can attach the laptop HDD internally and one of the currently raided drives and the transfer should be a lot quicker. Everything was there - Winamp with all my preferences, Firefox with all my favourites etc. Avast still working away etc etc. Everything I had working on the old PC now works on the new PC with virtually no interference I ****ing love GParted. I've always thought it was a very useful tool but I see now how good it really is. For a straight transfer, internally, of a Windows install, I reckon it would do it in less than an hour. If I was doing it manually with Windows, by the time I uninstalled Windows and re-installed it and installed all of my programs, I reckon I'd be looking at 5-6 hours. I raise my glass to the creator of GParted __________________ Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean I...