Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without disturbing the data that is in t

J

JoeSulla

When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
code 0F00:0244

Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
XP

I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
two logicals.

If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:

The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
partitions.

Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.

Is that correct?

Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?


Thank
 
P

Paul

JoeSulla said:
When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
code 0F00:0244

Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
XP

I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
two logicals.

If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:

The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
partitions.

Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.

Is that correct?

Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?


Thank

My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
on what people were doing with the results.

Generally, you'd want to test with a second diagnostic, and see if it
reports problems in the same block.

Both Western Digital and Seagate, offer diagnostics for download from
their web site. Seagate makes a self-booting version (Seatools for DOS)
and a version that runs from Windows, as examples of diagnostics. They
can have things like a "short" and a "long" test. Such tests would
likely include read verification.

A lot of other disk companies, have been bought up by the big two,
making it more of a challenge to find the diagnostics for other
brands of disks.

I can get the same sort of info as well, from some testing with
HDTune, but that probably won't be giving you a log to look at
later.

*******

You'll need a Partition Manager program, to do manipulations on
the disk partitions. For example, you could "move" the logicals to
the left, squeeze down the extended partition holding them, and put
new partitions to the right. Or, attempt to convert the logicals
into primary partitions. Or, try the (much more dangerous) merge
type operation, to squash them together and make room for more
partitions.

Depending on the importance of your data though, I still like the idea
of backing up a disk, as a function of what you plan to do to it. If
I was "merging" several partitions, I'd definitely make an image of
the entire disk, onto a brand new disk.

Think of it this way. You've had a disk failure, and are now "minus one disk".
Logically, you should be buying a new (dependable) disk to add to your
collection, to take its place. That gives you one spare disk to play with,
while planning all your partition movements or changes. You can select
a size of disk, big enough to do maintenance on the biggest disk you've
got. The pricing on disks is sufficiently illogical, you can pay just
about anything now, whether the disk is 20GB or 2TB.

There are partition manager programs which are available for free.
There are Linux discs like Gparted LiveCD (which I find scary, because
of the bogus messages you might see while it's running). If selecting
a free partition manager, run the name of the utility through Google,
and see if it's damaged stuff. if there are reports of it ruining disks,
then you'll have advanced warning (and be using that new disk for a backup).

Even Windows has some primitive capabilities. DiskPart, if you run it
from a Windows 7 Recovery Console, can do things like "shrink" a partition.
You can download a Windows 7 installer DVD, and use the Recovery Console on
it, without a license key.

But what most people are looking for, is a reliable "non-circus" tool
that won't make them crazy. In which case, a commercial partition manager,
with a good reputation, is what you should be looking for. I revel in
the free crap, but also use backups to cover me, in case something goes
wrong. And with that "new disk to replace old disk, balance of the universe"
approach I suggest, you should be getting an additional brand new disk, so
you don't have to be nearly as fearful while making these changes.
I don't mind moving a primary partition with a utility. That always
works. But some of the more complicated operations, like "merge", is
just asking for trouble.

I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.

*******

One other thing. I'm sure Acronis will be able to find how many partitions
are really on that disk. A Dell might have three or four. You can use
PTEDIT32, to check the partition types, if you want another opinion.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif

*******

In your situation, I'd probably be dropping by my local supplier,
and picking up another disk. On average, I buy about two disks a
year, just so I have a safe place to do stuff. That's better than
plotting and scheming, with untested partition manager utilities,
when you have no safety net to work with.

Paul
 
D

David H. Lipman

From: "Paul said:
My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
on what people were doing with the results.

It's trustworthy albeit I prefer manufacturer diagnostics but I haven't had a case where
the two software disagree.
 
C

Char Jackson

When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
code 0F00:0244

Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

By itself, probably not, but you can get a second or third opinion by
running chkdsk and/or the drive fitness utility for your respective
drive.
My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
XP

I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
two logicals.

If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:

The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
partitions.

Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.

Is that correct?

That's correct. If you use the Clone feature, everything currently on
the target drive will be gone. The solution is simple: don't use the
Clone feature since it doesn't apply in your case.
Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?

You need a tool that can copy partitions from drive to drive and
optionally adjust the size and placement of those partitions on the
target drive.

I use Acronis Disk Director since it's what I have on hand. I've used
it numerous times to copy or move partitions, among many other
partition-related tasks, and it works well. I'm sure you can find a
similar tool, maybe even freeware, that will copy an existing
partition from one drive to a second drive. Copy the two partitions to
the big drive, make that drive bootable, and Bob's your uncle.
 
P

Paul

Molly said:
I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
solutions.

Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.[/QUOTE]

When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient. Your best choice,
might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.

I agree the reasons you _had_ to have many partitions are mostly gone
(mainly OS and/or motherboard limitations), but I think some people just
like it as something logical. (Also, possibly, having one for large
and/or fast-access files - such as video files - might still have
advantages in some situations, though a physically separate disc would
be better for most of those.)
[]

I had a certain backup tool, with size limits on backup. And the "20 partition"
machine, allowed me to beat their silly limit, which had no logical reasoning
in the first place. It was just an arbitrary limit in some commercial backup
software I'd bought. Rather than let the bastards win, I "fixed it". And at
the time, 20 partitions was the max allowed. I would have continued with the
silly idea, and added more partitions, if I could have.
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip


Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif
[]
That puzzles me. It seems to show a disc with three partitions (well,
four, but the fourth one is all zeros - I presume that's its way of
marking the end of the list). But although the first three have
different "Starting" "Cyl Head Sector" numbers, they all seem to have
the same "Ending" ones. I'd have expected each one to end at the sector
before the next one starts?!?

(I also see partition 1 starts at Cyl 0 Head 1 Sector 1, and has 63
sectors before it, whereas the others all start on a Head 0; I presume
the first head [0] of 63 sectors is where the partition table itself,
and/or boot sector, resides, or something like that?)

Once you get past a certain capacity point, the CHS is bogus. Disks are
actually controlled by LBA (logical block address), the numbers down
the right hand side of the PTEDIT32 display. But the CHS is still used
by a lot of OSes, for decision making. For example, Disk Management in
WinXP, plans the offsets and sizes of partitions, quantized to "S". So
if there are 63 sectors per track, then everything on the right hand
side ends up divisible by 63. And that screws up two things. Efficient
operations on an SSD. And efficient operations on a 4KB/sector current
generation hard drive. If the number was 64, the "world would have been
a happy place".

At one time, disks had small capacities, and the CHS was physical. You
might have had say eight heads, some number of fixed sectors per track,
and the cylinder count was real. You would specify operations in terms
of particular C, H, and S values. But once disks got large enough, the
allocation for those fields (field width) ended up too small. So IDE drives
and the BIOS, added support for simple logical block addressing, a single
number specifying what sector you wanted. That's similar to how SCSI works,
which had LBA from the start (a much more reasonable design, but
with added complexity in the controller board strapped to the drive).

Real disks, are actually variable geometry. The disk is "zoned", meaning
the number of sectors per track, varies across the disk. To convert an
LBA, into actual internal geometry on the disk, would need to take into
consideration, how the zones work. A good drive design, numbers all the
sectors as well, so after seek is complete, and the head is on track,
the controller can read the sector headers, and verify its in the right
place to get the LBA numbered sector the user specified. IBM is an example
of a company, that stopped doing that (no double check via sector headers).

*******

That Dell disk has three primary partitions. It's possible PTEDIT32 also
has a notation for logical, but since I just don't use extended/logical
partitions here, I don't know what it does in that situation. Logicals
live in an extended envelope, and so one primary partition would have
a partition type field indicating extended. The GUI on that tool, doesn't
look like it has room to display logicals at all. Just the primary partitions.

PTEDIT32 and Partition Magic in general, are pretty "brittle" when it comes
to "fake CHS geometry" info, alignment to multiples of S, and so on. If
I were to present a Windows 7 disk, with alignment to 1MB chunks instead of
to 63 sectors, the tools would likely error out. Whereas, when PTEDIT32 and
the OS disagree on the fake CHS shorthand, you get warnings every time
those tools are started. Annoying, but not the end of the world. The thing
is, if you "let Partition Magic fix the problem", the problem only comes
back again later, after you make some change with Disk Management.

And if I switch over to one of the 500 Linux distros, in an attempt to do
maintenance work, the tools there have switched to Windows 7 style alignment.
Instead of providing "hobbyist style controls" that could do just
about anything, they instead provided "dumbed down controls", which
means I can't do any serious work with things like GParted, from Linux.

Summary: Things are a mess... The switch from CHS, should have started
a lot sooner. As in, completely ignoring CHS once the disks no longer
used CHS in a practical way. And it's mainly an issue, if you're trying
to maintain your older equipment.

Paul
 
D

dadiOH

JoeSulla said:
When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test
Error code 0F00:0244

Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell
Diagnostics and XP

I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a
primary and two logicals.

If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:

The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two
big partitions.

Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk
onto the other one will erasse all my data in the two logical
partitions.
Is that correct?

Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?

Sure...

1. Install XP to the primary partition of the bigger drive. Doing so won't
mess up anything already in that partition or the other two. If you have
programs installed on the smaller drive, one of three things will happen
when you run them from the new XP install...

a) they will run just fine despite the lack of registry entries
b) they will make new entries in the new XP registry
c) they won't run and will have to be re-installed

Most all will be either "a" or "b". You may have to re-enter any
registration number for them.

2. You now have a system which can boot from either drive. You will be
presented with a boot menu when you boot so you can choose the drive; one of
the XP installs (the older most likely) will be the default. The boot menu
comes from boot.ini which is a text file on the first primary drive (what is
now C:)

3. Once you have things as you want them, you can just delete the original
XP install (the Windows directory).. You can also edit boot.ini so that
only the remaining XP install is listed; you can also edit the time delay
("timeout") for choosing a boot drive so that there is no delay.

Note that this would place Windows on whatever the drive letter is for the
new XP install (it won't be C:). That is no problem, just leave it as it is
and forget having C: as the boot drive.

I'm sure there are other ways to do what you want too but this requires
nothing you don't already have (I assume you have an XP install disk).

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.

Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.[/QUOTE]


I'm not Paul, to whom you responded, but I am also someone who
generally dislikes multiple partitions and recommends against them for
most people. If you're curious you can read my reasons in this article
I've written: "Understanding Disk Partitioning" at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

From: "Ken Blake said:
[]
I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
solutions.

Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.

I'm not Paul, to whom you responded, but I am also someone who
generally dislikes multiple partitions and recommends against them for
most people. If you're curious you can read my reasons in this article
I've written: "Understanding Disk Partitioning" at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

100% agreement with that Ken.


Thanks very much, Dave.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP
 
C

Char Jackson

Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.

When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient.[/QUOTE]

I wish you had explained that in a little more detail. I don't see
anything inconvenient about logical versus primary partitions. Modern
tools let you convert partitions from one type to the other with two
or three mouse clicks, and moving either type is as simple as
selecting it, selecting the Copy or Move command, and deciding where
to put it. I use Acronis Disk Director, but there are numerous
alternatives available.
Your best choice,
might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.

Your frustration seems to be a result of the tools you're using.
Starting around the time of Partition Magic (circa 1994 or so?),
moving and resizing partitions became dead simple. Plus, if the
partitions are empty or the data is not placed where it needs to be
moved, the process of moving or resizing partitions completes in
seconds. I consider the risk to be about on par with defragmenting.
Not zero, but close to it. It's low enough that I never make a backup
first, if that's any indication.

I don't know why you're finding such simple tasks to be a "whole lot
of work, with a whole lot of risk", but I suspect it's your tools.
 
P

Paul

Char said:
Molly said:
[]
I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
solutions.
Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.
When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient.

I wish you had explained that in a little more detail. I don't see
anything inconvenient about logical versus primary partitions. Modern
tools let you convert partitions from one type to the other with two
or three mouse clicks, and moving either type is as simple as
selecting it, selecting the Copy or Move command, and deciding where
to put it. I use Acronis Disk Director, but there are numerous
alternatives available.
Your best choice,
might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.

Your frustration seems to be a result of the tools you're using.
Starting around the time of Partition Magic (circa 1994 or so?),
moving and resizing partitions became dead simple. Plus, if the
partitions are empty or the data is not placed where it needs to be
moved, the process of moving or resizing partitions completes in
seconds. I consider the risk to be about on par with defragmenting.
Not zero, but close to it. It's low enough that I never make a backup
first, if that's any indication.

I don't know why you're finding such simple tasks to be a "whole lot
of work, with a whole lot of risk", but I suspect it's your tools.

I evaluate tools, to start, by doing a Google search and looking for
signs of failure. There is a correlation between the complexity
of the operation, and it's chances of failure. For example, "merge"
is a waste of time. And I'm sure the developers of such options,
really wish they hadn't. (Merge attempts to squash two partitions
together. And take care of file or directory clashes or whatever.)

Even in the simplest of operations, I can do a Google search and
find reports of failure. One of the free utilities, managed
to trash a FAT32 partition while resizing it. You can't get much
simpler than that. And based on that report, I wouldn't touch that
one with a barge pole. If it failed on a "merge", well,
what do you expect.

I'll leave it to anyone wishing to use a partition tool, to do
the necessary search for themselves, and see how trustworthy
these tools are.

You may scoff at my copy of Partition Magic. It sucks in many
ways. But, there are a subset of things I can do in it, that
I've come to trust. The same approach should be used with
any other tool you happen to find, that does partition management.
Do a backup first, "go crazy with the clicks" if you want,
pretend the tools is faultless. Then, check and see whether
it messed up or not. If it messed up, restore from backup,
and try it again, using simpler operations until you get a feel
for it. Maybe you'll find the defects in it, are too much to
stomach.

It's your data, and you can be as careless with it as you want.

Paul
 
C

Char Jackson

I evaluate tools, to start, by doing a Google search and looking for
signs of failure. There is a correlation between the complexity
of the operation, and it's chances of failure. ....
Even in the simplest of operations, I can do a Google search and
find reports of failure. One of the free utilities, managed ....
I'll leave it to anyone wishing to use a partition tool, to do
the necessary search for themselves, and see how trustworthy
these tools are.

The Internet is a big place and regardless of the tools you choose,
you'll find some clown somewhere who managed to mess something up.
For example, "merge"
is a waste of time. And I'm sure the developers of such options,
really wish they hadn't. (Merge attempts to squash two partitions
together. And take care of file or directory clashes or whatever.)

I've only had a reason to use merge a couple of times and it worked
without issues.
You may scoff at my copy of Partition Magic. It sucks in many
ways. But, there are a subset of things I can do in it, that
I've come to trust.

I wasn't scoffing at your choice of tool (PM) because I didn't know
what you were using. Partition Magic has been obsolete for a decade,
but by all means use it if it's still working for you.

All I really wanted to point out is that working with partitions
doesn't need to be a lot of work and doesn't need to carry a lot of
risk. It may be those things for you, but it doesn't have to be.
 
J

JoeSulla

Paul said:
My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
on what people were doing with the results.

Generally, you'd want to test with a second diagnostic, and see if it
reports problems in the same block.

Both Western Digital and Seagate, offer diagnostics for download from
their web site. Seagate makes a self-booting version (Seatools for DOS)
and a version that runs from Windows, as examples of diagnostics. They
can have things like a "short" and a "long" test. Such tests would
likely include read verification.

A lot of other disk companies, have been bought up by the big two,
making it more of a challenge to find the diagnostics for other
brands of disks.

I can get the same sort of info as well, from some testing with
HDTune, but that probably won't be giving you a log to look at
later.

*******

You'll need a Partition Manager program, to do manipulations on
the disk partitions. For example, you could "move" the logicals to
the left, squeeze down the extended partition holding them, and put
new partitions to the right. Or, attempt to convert the logicals
into primary partitions. Or, try the (much more dangerous) merge
type operation, to squash them together and make room for more
partitions.

Depending on the importance of your data though, I still like the idea
of backing up a disk, as a function of what you plan to do to it. If
I was "merging" several partitions, I'd definitely make an image of
the entire disk, onto a brand new disk.

Think of it this way. You've had a disk failure, and are now "minus one
disk".
Logically, you should be buying a new (dependable) disk to add to your
collection, to take its place. That gives you one spare disk to play with,
while planning all your partition movements or changes. You can select
a size of disk, big enough to do maintenance on the biggest disk you've
got. The pricing on disks is sufficiently illogical, you can pay just
about anything now, whether the disk is 20GB or 2TB.

There are partition manager programs which are available for free.
There are Linux discs like Gparted LiveCD (which I find scary, because
of the bogus messages you might see while it's running). If selecting
a free partition manager, run the name of the utility through Google,
and see if it's damaged stuff. if there are reports of it ruining disks,
then you'll have advanced warning (and be using that new disk for a
backup).

Even Windows has some primitive capabilities. DiskPart, if you run it
from a Windows 7 Recovery Console, can do things like "shrink" a
partition.
You can download a Windows 7 installer DVD, and use the Recovery Console
on
it, without a license key.

But what most people are looking for, is a reliable "non-circus" tool
that won't make them crazy. In which case, a commercial partition manager,
with a good reputation, is what you should be looking for. I revel in
the free crap, but also use backups to cover me, in case something goes
wrong. And with that "new disk to replace old disk, balance of the
universe"
approach I suggest, you should be getting an additional brand new disk, so
you don't have to be nearly as fearful while making these changes.
I don't mind moving a primary partition with a utility. That always
works. But some of the more complicated operations, like "merge", is
just asking for trouble.

I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.

*******

One other thing. I'm sure Acronis will be able to find how many partitions
are really on that disk. A Dell might have three or four. You can use
PTEDIT32, to check the partition types, if you want another opinion.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif

*******

In your situation, I'd probably be dropping by my local supplier,
and picking up another disk. On average, I buy about two disks a
year, just so I have a safe place to do stuff. That's better than
plotting and scheming, with untested partition manager utilities,
when you have no safety net to work with.

Paul

Wow! a whole course in one reply.

Thanks
 
J

JoeSulla

Char Jackson said:
By itself, probably not, but you can get a second or third opinion by
running chkdsk and/or the drive fitness utility for your respective
drive.


That's correct. If you use the Clone feature, everything currently on
the target drive will be gone. The solution is simple: don't use the
Clone feature since it doesn't apply in your case.


You need a tool that can copy partitions from drive to drive and
optionally adjust the size and placement of those partitions on the
target drive.

I use Acronis Disk Director since it's what I have on hand. I've used
it numerous times to copy or move partitions, among many other
partition-related tasks, and it works well. I'm sure you can find a
similar tool, maybe even freeware, that will copy an existing
partition from one drive to a second drive. Copy the two partitions to
the big drive, make that drive bootable, and Bob's your uncle.

So I looked at Acronis Disk Director.

What I read did not sound encouraging.

Have you ever moved the system to a new disk?

What do I have to do. Make unused room on the big disk and then move into
that.

But it sound like it will delete the original data!


Thanks
 
J

JoeSulla

Paul said:
I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.

Do you mean you would have put everything into one partition or that you
would have created two primary partitions.

One partition is for data that I'd back up and the other is for data that is
not worth the effort (but since I have much space I keep it around just in
case.)

Thanks
 
C

Char Jackson

So I looked at Acronis Disk Director.

What I read did not sound encouraging.

I don't know what you read.
Have you ever moved the system to a new disk?

Frequently. I've done it for myself multiple times and for clients
dozens and dozens of times.
What do I have to do. Make unused room on the big disk and then move into
that.

Yes. When you look at your big drive with something like Disk
Director, you'll see the primary partition, followed by a container
that holds two logical partitions. You'll also graphically see how
much free space each partition has.

You said you don't care about the primary partition on the big drive,
so select it and delete it. If the new free space is at least 35 GB,
you're ready to copy the two partitions from the small drive into that
space.

If the new free space isn't big enough to hold the two small
partitions, you need to make more room by sliding everything to the
right. You'll do so by starting on the right and working left, as
follows. Grab the left edge of the second logical partition and drag
it right to make it smaller. Then drag the first logical to the right
so it once again bumps up against the second logical. Then grab the
left edge of the first logical and drag it right to shrink it. Don't
worry, you can't accidentally shrink a partition smaller than the
amount of data it currently holds. Now grab the container that's
holding the two logicals and shrink it by dragging the left edge to
the right.

After all that, I assume you have more than enough room to copy the
two partitions from the small drive to the free space on the big
drive. Select them, one at a time, and place them on the big drive
where you want them.

At this point, absolutely nothing has been done to your drives yet. If
you're satisfied with the changes you've made, it's time to "commit"
them. This is when the changes get applied. It'll more than likely
force you to reboot to do most of the work so that Windows doesn't get
in the way.
But it sound like it will delete the original data!

That's up to you. You've said you care about the two logical
partitions on the big drive, so don't delete them.

If you do all of the above, your big drive will contain all of your
data, including the data currently on the small drive, but the big
drive won't be bootable yet. Have your Windows CD/DVD ready so you can
either repair the boot files, or simply run fixboot which should do
the same thing.

Lastly, keep in mind that nothing described above is destructive to
your current small drive, so you can always put it back and boot from
it if you need to. Don't blow it away until you're happy with the big
drive and how it's laid out.
 
P

Paul

JoeSulla said:
So I looked at Acronis Disk Director.

What I read did not sound encouraging.

Have you ever moved the system to a new disk?

What do I have to do. Make unused room on the big disk and then move into
that.

But it sound like it will delete the original data!


Thanks

The first thing I'd want to do, is *double check* how many primary partitions
are coming from the small disk, over to the big disk.

You can use PTEDIT32 to capture the relevant details. And post a picture
of the contents, if you don't want to type all those numbers in.

Let's take this one as an example.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif

Slots 1,2,3 are occupied. I'd want to eyeball the destination disk,
and see if slots 1,2,3 are free. The extended could be the fourth
slot for example (unlikely, but you might get lucky). Or perhaps,
after the move is made by the partition manager, it'll push the
(data-only) extended with two logicals, into the fourth slot.
By preserving slot locations, that helps prevent things like
boot.ini from needing to be corrected. It doesn't really matter
which slot the partition entries are in, as far as the operation
of basics are concerned. But it does affect processes such as booting.

The partition manager I use, Partition Magic, will screw with the slot numbers,
in an effort to preserve src-dest slot numbers. In the example above,
slot 2 of that Dell example is the boot partition. If I use a partition manager
to move it, it should go into slot 2 on the destination disk. And the tool may
decide to move the entry already in slot 2 on the other disk, into a new location.
Then, it's all a matter of whether that causes side effects or not. A data-only
partition, on the surface it doesn't care about being moved. If it was an EXT2
partition on a Linux system, I'd have to go into /etc/fstab and correct the
reference to that partition, as it would now be wrong (and my data partition
would no longer mount, until the reference to it was fixed).

What I try to do, when planning these things, is make the decisions for
the tool. Sorta like "guiding a landing" so I get the results I expect.
Because my experience is, if you leave things to chance, you may need to
do a lot more data movement, to fix everything properly. (I.e. You
"click a bunch of buttons", after it's done, some things work and
some things are broken. I'm trying to encourage enough planning,
so you get it right on the first try.)

As another example, if I was about to shrink a partition, I might be
tempted to defragment it. A typical defragmenter, has a "push to the
left" methodology (otherwise known as optimization, rather than actual
defragmentation). If I'm shrinking a partition, defragging with a good
tool, makes sure as many structures as possible, have been moved out
of the way to begin with. Which makes it a "slam dunk" for the tool
doing the actual shrink, as the next step.

In this example, I'd be attempting to move my Dell disk, over to my
larger disk on the right. I happen to have room for the three primaries
on Disk 2, so practically nothing can go wrong here.

Disk 1 Type Disk 2 Type
------ ------
Slot 1 DE Slot 1 <empty>
Slot 2 07 Slot 2 <empty>
Slot 3 DB Slot 3 <empty>
Slot 4 <empty> Slot 4 Extended (containing two data-only logicals)

(You can get some info on partition types here. Referencing this, is to
show the level of confusion a lack of standards has caused.)

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html

I made up a sample disk in a VM, to show what three primaries plus
an extended with two logicals would look like. The extended partition
ended up with a partition type of 0x0F.

Now, if I moved the three primaries on my other disk, in place
of the three primaries on my sample disk in this example, the
whole operation would be seamless. As the extended and two logicals
aren't going anywhere. I'd expect no side effects. Only the first
three slots, are going to get changed out. (I.e. "Output", "CAT",
and "DOG" would be replaced with the ones from the other disk.)

http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/6564/threepriplusextend.gif

Paul
 
J

JoeSulla

Char Jackson said:
I don't know what you read.
Right.
I believe I read that Move deletes the copied files.
And Copy said for bootable see Move.

I hope I remember that right!


Frequently. I've done it for myself multiple times and for clients
dozens and dozens of times.


Yes. When you look at your big drive with something like Disk
Director, you'll see the primary partition, followed by a container
that holds two logical partitions. You'll also graphically see how
much free space each partition has.

You said you don't care about the primary partition on the big drive,
so select it and delete it. If the new free space is at least 35 GB,
you're ready to copy the two partitions from the small drive into that
space.

If the new free space isn't big enough to hold the two small
partitions, you need to make more room by sliding everything to the
right. You'll do so by starting on the right and working left, as
follows. Grab the left edge of the second logical partition and drag
it right to make it smaller. Then drag the first logical to the right
so it once again bumps up against the second logical. Then grab the
left edge of the first logical and drag it right to shrink it. Don't
worry, you can't accidentally shrink a partition smaller than the
amount of data it currently holds. Now grab the container that's
holding the two logicals and shrink it by dragging the left edge to
the right.

After all that, I assume you have more than enough room to copy the
two partitions from the small drive to the free space on the big
drive. Select them, one at a time, and place them on the big drive
where you want them.

At this point, absolutely nothing has been done to your drives yet. If
you're satisfied with the changes you've made, it's time to "commit"
them. This is when the changes get applied. It'll more than likely
force you to reboot to do most of the work so that Windows doesn't get
in the way.


Again I wasn't clear. I meant on the small disk - that is the copied data.


That's up to you. You've said you care about the two logical
partitions on the big drive, so don't delete them.

If you do all of the above, your big drive will contain all of your
data, including the data currently on the small drive, but the big
drive won't be bootable yet. Have your Windows CD/DVD ready so you can
either repair the boot files, or simply run fixboot which should do
the same thing.

Lastly, keep in mind that nothing described above is destructive to
your current small drive, so you can always put it back and boot from
it if you need to. Don't blow it away until you're happy with the big
drive and how it's laid out.

Is this true of Move or should I use Copy.

Thanks a lot
 
P

Paul

JoeSulla said:

On the first picture (ptedit32fordef.gif), you'll be removing the
first entry (it's an empty one). The second entry (0x0F extended partition
with two logicals), can move down to the third or fourth slot. This
is to preserve the spatial order of the partitions (have slots in same
order as partitions on the disk). In fact, there is no reason for
a partition manager to do that, and if a non-spatial order is selected,
it just means more confusion for the user.

When the first 0x07 partition is removed from the 500GB disk, that
frees up 139GB.

The two primaries on the Dell disk, take about 40GB in total (I nearly
missed that one was in units of megabytes :) ), give or take.
That will easily fit in the 139GB hole.

The partition table, after copying them, should look like this.
I would guess a partition manager would do it this way. As a user,
you don't normally get to dictate the slot structure.

(500GB disk)

1) DE 00 ... 80262 sectors
2) 07 80 ... 70220115 sectors
3) 0F 00 ... 683292645 sectors (home of the two logicals)
4) 00 00 ... 0 sectors (unused slot)

Since the 0x07 partition has the boot flag set, you want the
partition manager to put it in the same relative slot on the
destination disk. If it ends up some place other than slot 2,
then you'd want to double check, that the contents of boot.ini
(ARC path specification to that partition) is corrected.

The 0x0F partition, spatially, could also be arranged like this,
but a Partition Manager won't do this on its own. Such an arrangement
would leave room for another primary partition (using the 100GB or
so left over and unallocated, after the empty Music partition is
removed. The partition manager would eventually do it this way,
if you tried to sandwich a new primary, in the leftover space
just before the extended one.

1) DE 00 ... 80262 sectors
2) 07 80 ... 70220115 sectors
3) 00 00 ... 0 sectors (an unused slot)
4) 0F 00 ... 683292645 sectors (home of the two logicals)

It's possible, to take PTEDIT32, and copy and paste the numbers
from one slot to another. In other words, I could manually edit
to change the "(500GB)" content, and make it look like the other
one I typed in. I've done that, moved a slot with PTEDIT32.
After you save, you reboot.

So either of the two pictures is functional. The first picture,
leaves room for a primary after the two logicals. But I don't like
that as a plan, due to it causing more work in the future (for the
disk drive), when capacity changes need to be made to a partition.
I'd prefer the second picture, leaving room for a primary between it
and the extended with two logicals. That way, I can squeeze the
logicals to the right in the future, if I wanted to make the primary
larger. And as primaries go, that primary is plenty large for any OS
experiments you might want to try. I use 40GB for Windows 7 for
example (kinda tight, but barely workable), so there'd be room
for an OS of that class.

I don't expect you'll have a problem with this move.

Just check and make sure the two partitions end up where expected,
in slot 1 and slot 2. I don't know if the Dell has any expectations
on slots. If you ever needed to run the Dell recovery software in
the future, it may stomp all over the setup anyway, and it might be
marginally better to have them in roughly the same order. The Dell software
may not be too clever. In general, installers for OSes, are some of
the most poorly written pieces of software around. (Like, ask me
how I felt, after trying my Win2K installer CD, doing some
partition planning, *not* punching any buttons to do anything,
doing a reboot, and finding partitions had been erased. Very
amusing, Microsoft. I used Testdisk, and my foggy memory of
the correct partition structure, to fix that, so nothing was
lost.)

Have fun,
Paul
 
P

Paul

One other thing.

Before booting the 500GB disk for the first time, after
everything has been moved to your satisfaction, don't
forget to temporarily disconnect the smaller old disk.

The OS should not be able to "see" the old disk for the
first boot, when you boot from the "new" disk. Once one
boot cycle has been completed using the 500GB as the boot
device, you can shut down and reconnect the old disk if
you want. Doing it that way, helps keep the disks
independent of one another. I've never figured out
what breaks, when leaving them both connected, and
booting the new disk. I just disconnect the old one
for the first boot, and all works well afterwards
(for whatever reason).

Paul
 

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