I have a friend (no, really) who has an older Dell with a 80GB hard drive with the OS (Win XP)and some programs on it and a 250GB that has pics, music etc. The PC only has space for the 2 hard drives. He would like to take the 80GB drive and transfer everything off of it to a larger HDD.
What’s the easiest way to do this? I thought maybe image the hard drive, but I’m not sure of the process.

I’d appreciate any ideas and help you might have!

Thanks
Sean

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Sean
"I do not like the cone of shame."
Boom Boom Room

Parted can copy a partition from one disk to another. And afterwards resize it to fill the whole HDD (if desired). There is a live-CD containing parted as well.
However, I am not sure how good NTFS is supported in parted. Another solution would be Partition Magic which probably can do the same - but is not free.

The best way however would be to tell him to buy a MSS and copy all his stuff on it instead of keeping it on a Desktop!

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HP EX475, 2GB RAM, BE-2300 | Linksys WRT54G (Tomato)

Believe me, I've tried that!!

_________________
Sean
"I do not like the cone of shame."
Boom Boom Room

Haha, I am actually doing the same thing, but not for me. My mom has an old Dell PC that has an 80GB HDD. She does not want it anymore, so I am going to replace the 80GB HDD with a 500GB, upgrade the RAM, and give to the inlaws. I am just going to do a fresh reinstall of XP instead of reimaging the HDD.

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Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

Did you read the MediaSmartServer blog today?
Blog - http://www.adigitalhomeblog.com
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I suggested reloading the OS and such, but he has some programs on there that he "can't find the auth codes" for anymore and wants to keep them.

Sean

_________________
Sean
"I do not like the cone of shame."
Boom Boom Room

This one is easy. There are a bunch of programs out there that will clone a hard drive and set the partition to the size of the new hard drive. The one I use is Acronis true Image:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
There is a trial version if you are are only going to do this once.
Create the Clone CD. remove the 250GB hard drive. Replace it with the new larger hard drive. Note that the new hard drive does NOT need to be formatted, partitioned or anything. Start the computer with the 1st boot device as the CD and put in the Acronis True Image CD. It will recognize the two hard drives and you tell it to clone the 80GB to the 500 GB (or whatever). 20 minutes later, POOF! All of the 80 GB is copied over to the 500GB with everything intact and resized to the new hard drive.

Two real gotchas to watch out for. Does this old computer SUPPORT that large a hard drive and make sure to buy the right PATA (ribbon clable) or SATA (thin cable hard drive. CHECK FIRST before doing anything else!

I too recommend a fresh install. By this time, his drive has to be pretty well garbaged up.

PS I do this once a month with my primary hard drive to back it up. No reloading necessary if I have trouble with the original. Plug and play.

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John E Pombrio
Do not meddle in the affair of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.