Hard Drive copying etc...

stokecity_m

stokecity_m

stokecity_m

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I've decided to upgraded my main hard drive ( contains operating system etc)

Is it possible to copy everything off the old drive and put it on the new drive?
I'd want to remove the old drive then.
 
It is possible to do this, I used a free program called DD, you need to set the input and output locations correctly for your system and the new hdd must be bigger than the old one.

If this is the main boot drive, you need to copy the entire drive, not just the partitions to get the bootsector aswell

once copy to the new disk is finished you can just remove the old drive, then expand the main partition to fill the extra space
 
user1453 said:
It is possible to do this, I used a free program called DD, you need to set the input and output locations correctly for your system and the new hdd must be bigger than the old one.

If this is the main boot drive, you need to copy the entire drive, not just the partitions to get the bootsector aswell

once copy to the new disk is finished you can just remove the old drive, then expand the main partition to fill the extra space
Click to expand...

easy to do?

will it make any difference that the old drive is ide, and new one sata?
 
I found it easy enough to do, no it doesn't matter the hdd interface, it's just a matter of typing the right command (google is your friend) and then leaving it for three hours.

It takes that long due to it being a bit for bit copy

I believe this was the command I used

dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk0 of= if=\\?\Device\Harddisk1 bs=1M

I picked up the hdd numbers form the strage section of computer management in administrative tools, control panel
 
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