I'm trying to copy my c drive to a different hard drive. I'm using drive sentinel and it says the original drive is going bad. It still works fine, i just want to take a precaution. So, my original hard drive is 230gb. I'm only using about 60gb of that. My new hard drive is a 160gb. When I used disk copy, I checked the mbr button just like the instructions said. After completion, I unplug my original HD and plug the new one into disk 0 on the mother board and it says I have no bootable partion when I re boot. What am I doing wrong. I did format the new drive first, otherwise ghost couldn't see it. If this was wrong, can I unformat it at this point? I'm using windows XP.
Message Edited by Sign-A-Rama on 12-03-2009 01:49 PM
Sign-A-Rama,
Is the C: drive on your old HD, 230 GB? Or 60 GB? If it is 230 GB see "Restoring to a smaller partition"
http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=other&thread.id=15643
I'd delete the partition on the new HD before trying Copy Drive again.
http://community.norton.com/norton/board/message?board.id=other&thread.id=10364&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
See Message #5
I recommend these options...
Check source for file system errors
Check destination for file system errors
Resize drive to fill unallocated space
Set drive active (for booting OS)
DON'T Disable SmartSector copying
Copy MBR
Destination partition type... Primary
Drive letter.... Choose "None"
Make sure you unplug the old HD before the first boot from the new HD.
Message Edited by Brian_K on 12-04-2009 09:17 AM
So how do I delete the partition on the new hard drive and start over? I don't understand some of the stuff in the messages you linked in your reply. I've already formatted it and used disk copy. As soon as disk copy is done, my computer won't read it. Could you walk me through starting over? Please.
Sign-A-Rama,
You haven't told us the C: drive partition size. What to do next depends on its size.
To delete the partition on the new HD, attach it to any computer by USB and use Disk Management to delete the partition. Or use a third party partitioning app to delete the partition.
I'm trying to copy my c drive to a different hard drive. I'm using drive sentinel and it says the original drive is going bad. It still works fine, i just want to take a precaution. So, my original hard drive is 230gb. I'm only using about 60gb of that. My new hard drive is a 160gb. When I used disk copy, I checked the mbr button just like the instructions said. After completion, I unplug my original HD and plug the new one into disk 0 on the mother board and it says I have no bootable partion when I re boot. What am I doing wrong. I did format the new drive first, otherwise ghost couldn't see it. If this was wrong, can I unformat it at this point? I'm using windows XP.
Message Edited by Sign-A-Rama on 12-03-2009 01:49 PM
The new HD is a 160GB SATA drive (WD Raptor) I didn’t partition it, I just formated it and then ran disk copy. I don’t know how to delete the formatting and start over.
We need to know the size of the C: drive on your old HD.
It shows up in drive sentinel as 232.8 gb. There isn’t a partition and most of the space is free space, as I said before the programs use about 60gb. I did read in one of the links you sent, that this could be a problem.
The C: drive is a partition. I'm afraid you will have to resize this partition to 160 GB. For safety, make it 150 GB. This is described in the links I posted.
Then perform Copy Drive to the unallocated space on the new HD.
Is your computer a desktop and are both HDs internal? You should be able to delete the partition on the new HD from Disk Management.
Both hard drives are internal. So I delete the partition in my new drive. So I'm able to partition my old c drive to 150 gb, without deleting the files? Then run disk copy and copy the drive to my new drive?
You will need partitioning software to resize your C: drive to 150 GB. Parted Magic is free.
http://partedmagic.com/
You should have an image backup of the C: drive before you start, in case something goes wrong. Do you have a friend to help you with the resizing. It is a potentially dangerous procedure if you are unfamiliar with the software.
Ok, so here's what I've done. For some reason, Windows disk management made my new HD "dynamic", so I deleted that partition and changed it to "basic". So now I have a 160 gb HD, unallocated, designated as "basic". I then did disk copy to the unallocated new HD and it still won't boot. However, it added a line to my boot.ini so now it asks me which one to boot to. It will not boot to the second choice "Windows XP 2003". So, I'm doing a backup of my c drive in norton ghost, so I have a restore point. What should my next step be? Boot to the recovery disk and restore to the unallocated drive? Incidently, I first tried the new drive plugged into the 1st position with no other drive in, and it wouldn't boot. I never booted up and had both drives plugged in. I'm assuming I can delete the 2nd boot option from my boot.ini? Please let me know, I appreciate all the help you've given me.
Doug
Doug,
The old HD is still working and you have created a backup image of the C: drive. That's good. You have unallocated space on your new HD ready for Copy Drive.
You still haven't resized the partition on the old HD. Down to 150 GB.
When I try to make a recovery disk I get a bunch of errors. If something happens when I change the partition size on my old HD, will I be able to recover my disk afterwards from the backup I made? Is the recovery disk used for drivers & settings? The image should restore the HD to the state is was before I partition it? I just want to make sure I understand it. We had a huge amount of snow overnight (14") so I have all day to work on this.
thanks,
Doug
Message Edited by Sign-A-Rama on 12-09-2009 07:58 AM
Doug,
There is only a small risk of losing data when resizing a partition. As you haven't used partitioning software the risk could be much higher as it is easy to make a mistake.
I used Acronis Disk Director to resize the partition, however, it wouldn’t let me do it because of errors. So, I had some Best Buy Reward certificates and I bought a 1tb drive, and everything worked the way it should have in the first place without having to resize the partition. Thanks so much for your help
Doug,
That is great news. Thanks for letting us know.