disk question

[itcontractor]

you guys might laugh at this question, but what's the best way to copy the current C drive Basic 35Gb primary disk, to my new 200Gb SATA disk, which is the current D drive and a Dynamic disk? I want this to then become the C drive and use the 35Gb disk as a backup device.

I was thinking of using Ghost to copy the drive, and then format the C drive. Just was unsure if the PC would boot backup as the 200Gb disk will still be showing as the D drive.

 

[draigGoch]

Can't you just copy everything onto the d: drive by using ghost or something else, then you need to open your pc up, and swap your cables to the HDDs over and then change your slave/master switches on the back.

Or alternatively, shouldn't there be an option in your BIOS to choose which hdd you boot from? Thus being able to boot from D:.




A computer always does what you tell it to, but rarely does what you want it to.....

 

[itcontractor]

one is a SATA disk and the other is IDE so can't really just swap the cables. also in the BIOS it is only showing my IDE connections, the SATA disk is not listed as being one that can be booted from

 

[G0AOZ]

Is the SATA interface on a separate plug-in card, or actually on-board the motherboard? If the latter, and you say your motherboard doesn't offer an option to boot first from SATA, then maybe try checking the board manufacturer's website for a possible BIOS upgrade which might include this. Alternatively, try setting BIOS to boot first off SCSI or "OTHER" device... Does the motherboard offer any options for SATA - enable, disable etc?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[itcontractor]

ok, will check the Abit website for an upgrade. There currently is nothing in the BIOS for SATA, but will trying changing it to boot from SCSI.

will keep you updated and thanks for the replies.

 

[itcontractor]

upgraded the BIOS from Abit's website using their utility to do it. looked to be going fine as it then gave me the option of the SATA disk being a bootable add-in. enabled this, and rebooted the machine, saving the settings on exit. looked to be booting up ok, still using the C drive to boot from, but once logged in and loaded windows, system halted with a high-pitched beep which was continuous. nothing would respond and have had to reset the BIOS to get the machine working.

only other changed was to add a new AMD 3000 Sempron CPU.

 

[northmans]

As I understand you have 200gb HDD without any partition. If it's clean you may create 2 partitions: 35Gb for OS (active) and 165Gb for other data. Create an image of your old HDD, and restore it onto first partition of new HDD. Switch new HDD to the master and get out your old HDD and that's all.
Try this way, if it won't work you could restore your old one any time as you'll have an image. But I use this system backup software, when I had to transfer all data from my old HDD to new one. And I didn't have any problem.

 

[remyvrs]

I don't want to disincurage you but I think there is another problem at cloning the system partition from the 35 gb ide to the 200 gb Sata : if you would instal a system on the sata drive it would need a set of sata-nmotherboard drivers as I know (something like instaling a SCSI drive) so my question is: if you manage to clone the partition how would it boot from the sata drive ??
to find out that first solve this problem : disconnect the ide drive, make an experimental instalation of the S.O. on the sata drive and after you make this system to boot , load ... then i think you will know how to make it boot from the sata drive after you clone the partition, that, if it posible to boot that system (from the ide) as long it was not instaled using the sata driver so it might never work.

It's nice to be important but it's more important to be nice.
Thanks for your attitude!

 

[itcontractor]

Thanks for the replies, any ideas how to solve the issue of the system halting once the motherboard recognizes the sata drive.

windows XP does recognize is through disk management.

 

[itcontractor]

solved the issue - and am now attempting to copy the C drive to the D drive using Ghost. Will then disconnect the IDE cable for the C drive and try and boot from the SATA drive....fingers crossed

 

[itcontractor]

ok, an update for you. PC boots up ok with no issues, and motherboard is recognising the disk also.

however i am having problems using the drive. it is showing as a dynamic disk, and when using Norton Partition Magic 8, the application will not allow me to use any of the wizards to configure the disk. also cannot activate the disk either through this application or through Disk Management. The disk doesn't appear to be faulty as i can use it to store files etc etc.

 

[cdogg]

Did you look at this already?

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=236086

Not that using Ghost is a bad idea, but why not use the utilities that came with hard drive (or out on the manufacturer's website)? They are free and include cloning services making it easy, for example, to copy a 35GB drive's data over to a 200GB drive, regardless of how you choose to partition it.

I'm thinking that the way the partitions were created to begin with is the problem.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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