Copying a drive that's in use - with a boot CD?

edanto

I've got two HDs in my machine, but I'm looking to replace the smaller one (20G) with a new one(100G).

The 20G drive is my boot drive, with all the Windows & program files etc. Music etc was on the 40G drive, but that's copied off now. I plan to copy the contents of the 20G drive to the 40G one and then just change the cable position and hey presto, the 40G drive is my boot drive and the new drive is full of music/files etc.

The problem I need help with is that as soon as I went to copy the 20G drive, I got a (half expected) error that there is a sharing violation i.e. the files are being used and can't be copied. Is there a more elegant way to copy all the contents of one HD to another?

Slaanesh

edanto wrote:

I've got two HDs in my machine, but I'm looking to replace the smaller one (20G) with a new one(100G).

The 20G drive is my boot drive, with all the Windows & program files etc. Music etc was on the 40G drive, but that's copied off now. I plan to copy the contents of the 20G drive to the 40G one and then just change the cable position and hey presto, the 40G drive is my boot drive and the new drive is full of music/files etc.

The problem I need help with is that as soon as I went to copy the 20G drive, I got a (half expected) error that there is a sharing violation i.e. the files are being used and can't be copied. Is there a more elegant way to copy all the contents of one HD to another?

Norton's Ghost is a great utility for copying the exact contents of a hard drive to another. Not sure if there is a free version out there.

edanto

Cheers - I've found some freeware that looks like it'll do the job. 'ghost' was part of my googling, thanks.

Wolverine_1999

hi edanto, could you maybe provide the link for the free software? I would be interested in it, thanks!

SwampThing

Imo, the Acronis suite of software beats the baggy pants off Ghost any day.

I came across it when trying to clone Linux servers with RAID controllers - Ghost didn't want to know. Acronis TrueImage worked first time.

I just had a look on their site before posting and this little doozie seems a new addition to the family - might be worth the $40 investment

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/migrateeasy/

edanto

Wolverine_1999 wrote:

hi edanto, could you maybe provide the link for the free software? I would be interested in it, thanks!

Sure, I found a place that gives a whole utility package you can burn on to a CD and boot from.

It's at sourceforge

I took the basic package, don't need the linux tools, and I'm just about to clone the drive now.

edanto

I need a bit more help, if anyone has any ideas. The .exe file I downloaded extracted itself into an ISO and I burned that on to a CD, thinking it would boot from that CD. (I've no idea how to make a boot CD)

I have the boot order set up in the BIOS, but the PC just boots as normal, ignoring the CD I've put in. Am I missing something to make this boot CD? Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: Using Burnatonce - Free for non-commercial use burning software (Contributed by Michael Ireland)

1. Load burnatonce software.
2. Let it associate to all ISO files.
3. Open desktop icon.
4. Click on "File" >> "Load New Image ..."
5. Search for the ISO image and select.
6. Click on the "Write" button.
7. From memory, it takes about 20 minutes to do a full copy (of Ultimate Boot CD).

http://www.burnatonce.com/downloads/

SwampThing

ed, can that burnatonce open this file as a boot image for a bootable cd?

HDClone 2.0 Free Edition
========================

---INSTALLATION CD

---

You can build a bootable program CD by means of the file
HDCLONE.IMG and your CD creation software. For doing so,
create a bootable CD project and use the file HDCLONE.IMG
as a 1,44 MB floppy disk image....

edanto

I don't know - first time I've done this.

When I was installing burnatonce, it associated tiself with a couple of file types incl ISOs and I think IMG was also mentioned. Because of the, it'll do what you want.

HDClone is part of the utility package I linked to above - that's the prog that's cloning my hard drive at the mo'.

SwampThing

Obviously you're having difficulty with the iso.

Try this - try create a new, bbotable cd in burnatonce. It should ask you for a bootable image - the .img file in this case. If not, you'll need a tool that can do that - Nero is your best bet. In the mean time, I'll ty create an iso from a bootable CD created from that .img file and put it on the web for you - but try that first and let me know if it works.

edanto

Cheers, problem solved. HD cloned and looking good.

The only thing is that the new drive now has a partition, so it appears as small as the old drive, but I think delpart.exe that you mentioned in the other HD thread might sort things out.

EDIT - or maybe not - I've been looking at that tool and it seems suited to removing stuborn partitions.

What I want to do is to take some unallocated space and add all of it to the primary partition on the drive. Is that possible?

SwampThing

You can with Partiton Magic - but you probably don't have that.

You have to have partitions on your disk to use it. Each partiton will become a drive in the OS (kinda). So, if you have a primary partition and an extended partiton with one logical drive, you'll have a C and D drive in windows.

You could use fdisk on the bigger drive and create and extended partiton and a logical drive, format it and have a 'second' hard disk in Windows. If you can't live with that and need a single bigger partiton then...

You could put the bigger drive in as a slave, booting from the old, small drive.
Then, fdisk the bigger disk and create an active primary partition the full size of the disk. Then boot from the clone CD and do the job.

It's possible that the software is cloning the entire drive and not the partition and maybe that tool can't resize the partiton on the fly. If not, you'll need either a different cloning utility or, Partiton Magic, which can resize, join, etc.. partitons

Note: Just in case you're not 100% with it - fdisk will wipe your disk clean when you remove/create partitons

edanto

Thanks very much - I've got a much better idea of what I'm trying to after you've explained it. I've got partition magic now and I'll probably be grand.

Nice one.

EDIT - drat, damn evaluation version is a total tease. It showed me how my problem would be fixed and then told me to go and buy the full version. I'll try and find a bit o freeware. Any ideas?