Replacing boot drive - changing drive letters - fixing MBR etc

  • Thread starter Thread starter $Bill
  • Start date Start date
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$Bill

I'm dual booting XP Pro and 98SE and need to replace a disk.

What I'm trying to do is replace Disk0 with Disk3 and at the
same time also move all the Disk1 stuff to Disk3. Then I
can remove Disk0 (bad drive but still functioning somewhat)
and cleanup Disk1 for use as a backup drive. 98SE is on C
and XP Pro on D with dual boot and default boot is XP.

So what I need to do is copy all of the data from CDEFGHI
(Disk0 and Disk1) to KLMNOP (Disk3) and then figure out how
to make KLMNOP drive letters into CDEFGH drive letters and
reformat Disk1 into IJ drives (resize the partitions) and
then J (Disk2) becomes K and CGHI (Disk0) goes away.

The new C (once K) becomes the 98 system drive and boot drive
and needs to handle the dual boot setup with XP Pro on D (once
L). I think I can change the drive letters using
ComputerManagement->DiskManagement window, but how do I
setup the dual boot and MBR stuff to the new C drive (once
K) on the new Disk3 ?

Note that all of the old drives/partitions contents (most
anyway) will end up on the same drive letter after renaming
the new drive's partitions (thus avoiding any registry
changes), but not necessarily on the same physical
disk:partition - is that a problem (maybe only for booting) ?

Before/Current:

Disk0 Disk1 Disk2 Disk3
C 5GB D 5GB J 4GB K 20GB
G 5GB E 5GB L 20GB
H 22GB F 24GB* M 20GB
I 42GB* N 20GB
O 20GB
P 20GB
Disk 1 (D) = Boot Disk
Disk 0 (C) = System Disk
* = Pagefile present

After/What I want:

Disk1 Disk2 Disk3
I 20GB K 4GB C 20GB
J 14GB D 20GB
E 20GB
F 20GB*
G 20GB
H 20GB

Disk3 (C) = Boot Disk
Disk3 (D) = System Disk
* = Pagefile present

I have a 2003 Norton Ghost and Seagate Seatools that came
with the drive. I've copied all but the C and D drives
which are the ones where the OS's reside. The pagefiles
can be moved to the new drive (I assume) before fixing
the boot drive if that's a problem. The hardest part is
figuring out how to copy the MBR/dual boot stuff to the
new drive.

TIA, Bill
 
Here is how I would do it. Move all your data from disk 0 and disk 1 to
disk 3. Make the necessary partitions on disk 1. I would use partition
magic 8 or disk copy 7. I would then hide disk 0 and make the the first
partition on disk 3 the active partition. This will automatically become
c:. Once you boot up you can use the disk manager to change to drive letter
designations for the other drives (or you can do it in partition magic).
 
kawipoo said:
Here is how I would do it. Move all your data from disk 0 and disk 1 to
disk 3. Make the necessary partitions on disk 1. I would use partition
magic 8 or disk copy 7. I would then hide disk 0 and make the the first
partition on disk 3 the active partition. This will automatically become
c:. Once you boot up you can use the disk manager to change to drive letter
designations for the other drives (or you can do it in partition magic).
Click to expand...

What if you don't have PartionMagic 8 or DiskCopy 7 ?
 
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