Question just for techies!!

britboy4321

britboy4321

britboy4321

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Hi techies,

I currently have 2 hard disks in RAID0.

They are 300 gig each, so I have 600gb. Critically, I only am using 220gb of that total space.

NOW, I want to get a new super-duper SSD. Here's the rub, I am only going to get a 250 (odd) gb SSD. I want to make an exact bit for bit image of my original disks on to the SSD.

My worst nightmare would be software saying 'Sorry, you can't 'mirror' a 600gb on to your new harddisk as it won't fit. And I'm absolutely stuffed'.


Sorry long question -- but anyone know software that will definately copy from a bigger but unused raided disk -- every single byte (including OS, as I obviously want to move the SSD to being my 'system disk') onto a smaller disk as it thinks 'yup its smaller, but the data will fit so I'll do it'?

Otherwise I'm going to spend hundreds on a SSD I can't use as my system disk :(


Massive, massive thanks for any help.
 
Yeah that shouldn't be a problem. I'd try Acronis True Image (there's even a free trial version you can download - 30 day limit, but that's no drama for a one time use)

It shouldn't matter that you are going from a larger array to a smaller single disk, as long as the disk has capacity for everything that will be imaged it'll be fine.

However, i have to say that putting 220Gb onto a 250Gb SSD is leaving precious little room for any future usage... Is there a reason why you can't reinstall from scratch as I would suggest that'd be far cleaner and probably less volume too. I created a slipstreamed copy of my Vista disk and added updates etc, as well as removing some of Vista's unnecessary bloat - like about 1Gb of language support which I'll never use...
 
'Is there any reason why I can't rebuild?'

... I don't have the vista cd (in fairness to me I didn't lose it, rather I never got sent it by the stupid company who built my PC and then went bust!)

... Also 220gb isn't all essential stuff, I could probably strip down old, 'bored of' games and get down to 180 or something.

Anyway thanks for that -- I'll give it a go. I really do appreciate the help ..

Britters.
 
Before doing anything like making an image of your HDD I would strip windows back to the bare minimum.

Remove all games, programs you dont constantly use,old file in my documents.
Give a good virus scan, registry clean and a defrag then make the image you want transferred. Then that way if for any reason anything goes wrong in the future you have a ready to go image to reinstall from.

This method has saved me umpteen hours on both my machine and others I've built for friends/family make an image and keep tight for when they call saying PC Died again :(

180 Gb for a OS/apps install seems horrendously large for my liking, my 64Bit Vista one is about 9Gb, old XP one about 6Gb (and I thought my XP one was taking the mic tbh)

Why dont you use the SSD for OS/Apps only and then keep yer other drives striped for backup/media/games ? That way if you install all your games to the other drive and make an image the registry details would be kept but you wouldn't need to include all of teh games and such in the image, thus making it far smaller, when the image is restored the games will still be there on the other drives and work as normal. This is what I do, you can also map my docs and your email inboxes and such to other drives to so should anything happen then you retain all of your data too.

If the company havn't given you a vista disc did you at least get your vista key?
 
Yeah I would suggest that you leave any 'old' stuff on your existing array, or copy everything over, then format the array (maybe switch it to being RAID 1 for redundancy) and copy stuff back and use it as a data store.
 
I like your idea a lot actually. My original thinking was very simpleton --- 'Everything I have is 220gb, so I'll need a 250gb, so I may as well transfer everything to it -- I may as well transer everything as whats the point in having empty SSD while a hard disk whirs around?' (I know -- there's some logic lost there somewhere!! :)


But I guess if I strip down I could get a smaller SSD potentially and save some wodja. What size do you reckon would suit a user who just wants Vista 64 bit (plus a reasonable amount of 'swap' space for it, maybe 2 games (at a time) and microsoft office on it (and about 5 gigs of professional apps for the day job -- terminal emulators, zipping, some 'VNC' stuff and other boring business stuff etc)?

Would 64gb do the job for the bare essentials I have listed?

(no the company did not give me the vista key. Yes it is a nightmare. No I have no comeback. Nor do the people who didn't get their PC delivered at all (but spent the money!). I'll never buy expensive from small companys again unless I drive to their premises and take the product as and when I pay for it. None of this 'give us £2500 then wait for 3 weeks whilst we build it or maybe go bust' malarky any more!)
 
If you don't have a Vista DVD, how about waiting til Win7 RC1 comes out and install that? You'll prefer it to Vista :p
 
For a bare minimun 60Gb would be ok, but I would personally prefer to see 90-120Gb. I'm currently using about 45Gb of my 90Gb array for Vista64, Office, Photoshop, Pinnacle Studio, and about 4 or 5 large games like Crysis, Far Cry 2 - so as i said 60 Gb would work, but it'd be getting tight.

Or as miniyazz said Win7 isn't too far away and it has native support for TRIM and other subtleties of SSD's - overall is meant to be much better for SSD users! But you could have course go with Vista now, then get Win7 when it makes it's debut (let's face it MS aren't the best at sticking to announced schedules!)

That company you bought from sound like a nightmare, a sorry experience! I have always advised people to 'ask for the original disks' when buying something pre-loaded, but of course most of the big manufacturers (Dell, HP etc) don't give you a disk, they partition the HDD and put a recovery set in there so you can burn your own recovery disks... which most people don't bother with. Still, it keeps people like me in work!
 
britboy4321 said:
(no the company did not give me the vista key. Yes it is a nightmare. No I have no comeback. Nor do the people who didn't get their PC delivered at all (but spent the money!). I'll never buy expensive from small companys again unless I drive to their premises and take the product as and when I pay for it. None of this 'give us £2500 then wait for 3 weeks whilst we build it or maybe go bust' malarky any more!)
Click to expand...
Going OT for a minute, I'd say the Vista product key was an integral part of the contract.

If the company has gone ****-up, is there no chance of a Section 75 claim against your credit card company, or a chargeback if you used a debit card?

If you paid by cash or cheque I guess you're out of luck...
 
CaptainCrash said:
Going OT for a minute, I'd say the Vista product key was an integral part of the contract.

If the company has gone ****-up, is there no chance of a Section 75 claim against your credit card company, or a chargeback if you used a debit card?

If you paid by cash or cheque I guess you're out of luck...
Click to expand...

Long boring post sorry ...

It's quite interesting really .. I found out all about it (I had a large stake in knowing - a > £3000 PC with no warranty). Right -- there were a number of people that had faults with their delivered computers from the now defunct company (including me). The first thing I got asked was 'did i pay with credit card'. Apparently credit card companies can't be bothered with detail. So there were people with perfectly working computers, with 1 fault DVD drive, that phoned up the credit card company and said 'They sent me a broken computer, and now they've gone bust' and the card company REFUNDED THEM THE ENTIRE THOUSANDS they'd spent on the computer :eek: They got to keep the computer -- just £2899 transferred back on to their card! The credit card company couldn't be bothered to work out which parts of the computer work and which didn't. They just think 'item broken - company gone bust -- give customer the money back'!! Whoa!!

BUT ME?!?!? ME?!?!? In a moment of total stupidity I paid on Switch (debit card). That single decision .. choosing a card that was 2mm away from my credit card .. cost me > £3000. There is NO help from debit cards. No money back. Tough luck mate.

My computer is actually water cooled and I had to fix a bad leak myself. I had paid for extra warranty that actually hadn't started yet and that money has 100% gone and I have no warranty. I just thank the lucky stars I got the PC (I was the second to last one delivered. 9 orders weren't complete (but tey paid their thousands .. hopefully on credit card!!).

People underestimate the protection you get when using credit cards. I know they're expensive, but you get A LOT MORE than just credit. As I said, not using the card effectively cost me >£3000 (although I paid for a comp and I got it so I'm not mega-fussed).

There is a load more to this story, including how I got my name on the list of official 'debtors' and the administrators meeting and stuff, but it's a little dull so I'll skip it ...
 
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Blimey! You were lucky to get your rig then! I am sure your experiences here will be far more pleasant, both to your pocket and your sanity:)
 
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