Hi all,

I need your help!

My C drive constantly ran low and even reached 0GB many times. This is my
big headache.

This time I really want to solve this problem.

I have purchased a 300GB harddisk. And how can I move the content of my old
harddisks(two 40GB harddisks partitioned into drives C, D, E, F, G, H, I) to
the new harddrive? I plan to retain one 40GB harddisk, so eventually I will
have 340GB harddrive in total.

My question is:

Is there a way to do the upgrade without reinstall the OS and all the
softwares? It seems to me that the drive letters will change also. So the
softwares will be in a mess.

Could you please tell me some easy steps to follow so that I won't make a
mess of my computer system? I am really a greenhand in computers.

Thanks a lot

Most hard drives either come with, or you can download from the
manufacturer, a utility that will clone your current drive to the new one.
I've found that WD's utility works pretty well.

Val

"cfman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I need your help!
>
> My C drive constantly ran low and even reached 0GB many times. This is my
> big headache.
>
> This time I really want to solve this problem.
>
> I have purchased a 300GB harddisk. And how can I move the content of my
> old harddisks(two 40GB harddisks partitioned into drives C, D, E, F, G, H,
> I) to the new harddrive? I plan to retain one 40GB harddisk, so eventually
> I will have 340GB harddrive in total.
>
> My question is:
>
> Is there a way to do the upgrade without reinstall the OS and all the
> softwares? It seems to me that the drive letters will change also. So the
> softwares will be in a mess.
>
> Could you please tell me some easy steps to follow so that I won't make a
> mess of my computer system? I am really a greenhand in computers.
>
> Thanks a lot
>

"Val" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Most hard drives either come with, or you can download from the
> manufacturer, a utility that will clone your current drive to the new one.
> I've found that WD's utility works pretty well.
>
> Val
>

Are you sure it's an easy clone? As I said, I have two 40GB harddisks
partitioned into C, D, E, F, G, H, I,... will the clone program retain
everything the same including the drive letters?

Thanks

"cfman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:%(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "Val" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Most hard drives either come with, or you can download from the
> > manufacturer, a utility that will clone your current drive to the new
one.
> > I've found that WD's utility works pretty well.
> >
> > Val
> >
>
> Are you sure it's an easy clone? As I said, I have two 40GB harddisks
> partitioned into C, D, E, F, G, H, I,... will the clone program retain
> everything the same including the drive letters?

With XP you can change drive letters, other than c, after creation.

later.....

Can you tell the group:
If the drives are ide, scsi or what?
If ide, are current hard drives both masters, master/slave with each other
or what?
If ide, is there an ide cd and dvd, and what's its jumpering and relation to
the other ide hard drives, primary or secondary?
If ide, are you using the onboard ide ports exclusively, or an ide card
fully or partially for all ide devices?

--
Noncompliant

Money don't wag the dog's tail.

"cfman" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
>
> I need your help!
>
> My C drive constantly ran low and even reached 0GB many times. This is my
> big headache.
>
> This time I really want to solve this problem.
>
> I have purchased a 300GB harddisk. And how can I move the content of my
> old harddisks(two 40GB harddisks partitioned into drives C, D, E, F, G, H,
> I) to the new harddrive? I plan to retain one 40GB harddisk, so eventually
> I will have 340GB harddrive in total.
>
> My question is:
>
> Is there a way to do the upgrade without reinstall the OS and all the
> softwares? It seems to me that the drive letters will change also. So the
> softwares will be in a mess.
>
> Could you please tell me some easy steps to follow so that I won't make a
> mess of my computer system? I am really a greenhand in computers.
>
> Thanks a lot
>

This is what I would do, it assumes that you only have one operating
system on your current disks and that it is on "C:" and that all other
partitions are data partitions.

1- Mount the new disk in the computer and create partitions on it to
hold the information currently held in the data partitions on the old disks.

2- Copy the information from the data partitions on the old disks to the
newly created partitions on the new disk.

3- Use a disk partitioning tool like BootIt NG and merge all the
partitions on the old hard disk containing the "C" partition into one
partition only. In other words merge them all into the "C:" partition.

That will leave you with the old hard disk with only one 40 gig "C:"
partition, that is the System and Boot volume. Your operating system
and all your programs will remain there, you will not need to reinstall
them. You will be able to reassign all the drive letters as you please,
except for the System and Boot volumes (C.

If your programs are not on C but in another one of the myriads of
partitions that you currently have, then unless you move them to a
partition with the same drive letter you will have to reinstall them.

John

cfman wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I need your help!
>
> My C drive constantly ran low and even reached 0GB many times. This is my
> big headache.
>
> This time I really want to solve this problem.
>
> I have purchased a 300GB harddisk. And how can I move the content of my old
> harddisks(two 40GB harddisks partitioned into drives C, D, E, F, G, H, I) to
> the new harddrive? I plan to retain one 40GB harddisk, so eventually I will
> have 340GB harddrive in total.
>
> My question is:
>
> Is there a way to do the upgrade without reinstall the OS and all the
> softwares? It seems to me that the drive letters will change also. So the
> softwares will be in a mess.
>
> Could you please tell me some easy steps to follow so that I won't make a
> mess of my computer system? I am really a greenhand in computers.
>
> Thanks a lot
>
>

cfman wrote:

> Are you sure it's an easy clone? As I said, I have two 40GB harddisks
> partitioned into C, D, E, F, G, H, I,... will the clone program retain
> everything the same including the drive letters?


Over and above the answers you've already gotten, why do you have *seven*
partitions. That's enormous overkill for almost everyone. Except for those
running multiple operating systems, almost everyone is best off with no more
than two partitions.

What do you use each of those partitions for? Most people with so many
partitions have created such a structure because they have an erroneous
understanding of how things work. For example, some people put all their
installed programs in a separate partition because they think that if they
ever have to reinstall Windows, at least their programs won't have to be
reinstalled. In fact, that's false; all programs, except for a rare trivial
one, have many associated files and entries pointing to them within Windows,
in the registry and elsewhere. So if Windows gets reinstalled, your programs
have to be reinstalled too.

This might be a good time to think seriously about simplifying you partition
structure dramatically.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

On 3/31/2007 10:06 AM On a whim, Ken Blake, MVP pounded out on the keyboard

> cfman wrote:
>
>> Are you sure it's an easy clone? As I said, I have two 40GB harddisks
>> partitioned into C, D, E, F, G, H, I,... will the clone program retain
>> everything the same including the drive letters?
>
>
> Over and above the answers you've already gotten, why do you have *seven*
> partitions. That's enormous overkill for almost everyone. Except for those
> running multiple operating systems, almost everyone is best off with no more
> than two partitions.
>
> What do you use each of those partitions for? Most people with so many
> partitions have created such a structure because they have an erroneous
> understanding of how things work. For example, some people put all their
> installed programs in a separate partition because they think that if they
> ever have to reinstall Windows, at least their programs won't have to be
> reinstalled. In fact, that's false; all programs, except for a rare trivial
> one, have many associated files and entries pointing to them within Windows,
> in the registry and elsewhere. So if Windows gets reinstalled, your programs
> have to be reinstalled too.
>

I have all my programs installed to one partition (at least all that LET
me). Buy my reasoning for this was to save space. I have 5 OS
partitions and they all share the data drive (D) and all programs are
installed to E. That way my OS drives are small (5 to 8 gig) and so is
my programs drive (currently 5 gig). I pointed all my Win OS's (98, Me,
w2k, XP) to install programs to E, thus only using one install for all
of them. Of course if I want to uninstall a program from any OS, I copy
the program folder, rename it, uninstall the program, then rename the
copied program folder back so the other OS's still access it. Isn't much
of a hassle as I don't uninstall programs often. This was important
when all 3 drives were 40 gig, but now only one is 60 gig, one is 120
gig and the newest one is 320 gig SATA.

But I also have 3 hard drives and make partition copies regularly to
other drives, so if one goes out I can quickly replace the drive, copy
the partition over and be back in business. I also have a redundant
data drive that is updated each day since data changes most often. Then
I also image to 2 external USB drives monthly (along with our 2 laptops,
iPods, etc).

Why do all this? Well, I've been the victim of losing 4 hard drives on
this machine and two on another over the last couple years (just had my
data drive die last week). Defective IBM's (GXP series), WD's.

I think the biggest error most make is thinking that creating separate
partitions keeps things safe, thinking that if drive C goes out they'll
still have their data on drive D, without even knowing that they are one
and the same drive.

--
Terry

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.

"John John" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> This is what I would do, it assumes that you only have one operating
> system on your current disks and that it is on "C:" and that all other
> partitions are data partitions.
>
> 1- Mount the new disk in the computer and create partitions on it to hold
> the information currently held in the data partitions on the old disks.
>
> 2- Copy the information from the data partitions on the old disks to the
> newly created partitions on the new disk.
>
> 3- Use a disk partitioning tool like BootIt NG and merge all the
> partitions on the old hard disk containing the "C" partition into one
> partition only. In other words merge them all into the "C:" partition.
>
> That will leave you with the old hard disk with only one 40 gig "C:"
> partition, that is the System and Boot volume. Your operating system and
> all your programs will remain there, you will not need to reinstall them.
> You will be able to reassign all the drive letters as you please, except
> for the System and Boot volumes (C.
>
> If your programs are not on C but in another one of the myriads of
> partitions that you currently have, then unless you move them to a
> partition with the same drive letter you will have to reinstall them.
>
> John
>


Great John! Thanks a lot!

Unfornately my OS is on C drive, and Programs is on D drive, other data are
on E, F, G, H, I drives.

There are so many partitions because I originally had two PCs each with one
40GB harddisk, then I combined them together...

What can I do now?

"Noncompliant" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Can you tell the group:
> If the drives are ide, scsi or what?
> If ide, are current hard drives both masters, master/slave with each other
> or what?
> If ide, is there an ide cd and dvd, and what's its jumpering and relation
> to the other ide hard drives, primary or secondary?
> If ide, are you using the onboard ide ports exclusively, or an ide card
> fully or partially for all ide devices?
>
> --
> Noncompliant
>

My god, how do I answer these technical questions? My two 40GB harddisks
work together, seems fine...