Replacing C: drive question?

blue5

Hi, I have 2 drives on a desktop PC both running windows, C: and E: .
The C: drive is 40GB, E: is 80GB. I use the E: drive mostly for installing and running software from, all music/ photos etc are backed up to external drives.

Programs I'm installing keep getting bigger and I saw a great deal for 1TB hard drives on ebuyer (1TB £69.99, check it out).

I want to keep my E: drive and replace the C: drive, will it disrupt anything?
Does the PC consider it the main dirve which it runs everything from or
will it be fine if I replced the C: drive with the new 1TB drive and installed
windows there?

Any help appreciated, thanks!

robinvn

blue5 wrote: »

Hi, I have 2 drives on a desktop PC both running windows, C: and E: .
The C: drive is 40GB, E: is 80GB. I use the E: drive mostly for installing and running software from, all music/ photos etc are backed up to external drives.

Programs I'm installing keep getting bigger and I saw a great deal for 1TB hard drives on ebuyer (1TB £69.99, check it out).

I want to keep my E: drive and replace the C: drive, will it disrupt anything?
Does the PC consider it the main dirve which it runs everything from or
will it be fine if I replced the C: drive with the new 1TB drive and installed
windows there?

Any help appreciated, thanks!

I'm afraid this won't work. You said you installed programs on E:, running windows from C:. This means you made changes to the windows registry which will be lost if you replace the C:.
A solution would be to make a complete image of your C-drive with e.g. Acronis, which you restore to the new 1TB drive. This way, you keep all your settings, programs and registry.
Regards,
Robin

blue5

Thanks I'll give that a try then!

robinvn

You can use freeware to create a drive image, I just looked around a bit and apparently http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm isn't bad.
I always used Hiren's boot cd for this kind of stuff, if you google it you'll get hold of it fast enough.
Cheers,
Robin

You might want to check your storage controller on your motherboard.

Ie, is it PATA, SATA, etc.

Just that your drive is 40GB and your upgrading it to 1000GB.

blue5

Thanks for the help guys. I don't know how to check the storage controller but will look up more info on this.

I'm running an AMD Athlon 64 Processor 4000+ 2.40GHz, 2.00 GB RAM which
I'm also hoping to upgrade to 8GB). Hopefully it will handle it but with a bit more reading I should find out.

Anti

Well chances are that your current c: is a pata drive, you might have a sata(which the new 1TB hard drive will be) controler on board but without knowing the board its hard to know. Also upgrading past 3.25gb of ram is pointless unless you plan on install a 64bit operating system as no 32bit operating system can address anything over 3.25gb.

mgadget

If you can connect up the new hard drive into the PC while your old C: drive is still connected you can download Acronis True Image Home, you get a fully functional 15-day trial of the software, use the disk clone function and you are away..well worth buying it after for the longterm for making backups.

blue5 wrote: »

Hi, I have 2 drives on a desktop PC both running windows, C: and E: .
The C: drive is 40GB, E: is 80GB. I use the E: drive mostly for installing and running software from, all music/ photos etc are backed up to external drives.

Programs I'm installing keep getting bigger and I saw a great deal for 1TB hard drives on ebuyer (1TB £69.99, check it out).

I want to keep my E: drive and replace the C: drive, will it disrupt anything?
Does the PC consider it the main dirve which it runs everything from or
will it be fine if I replced the C: drive with the new 1TB drive and installed
windows there?

Any help appreciated, thanks!