Question About Ghosting

[deaf_girl]

I have a WD 250GB HDD in my computer right now and a 320GB HDD that I want to put in as my (small case only 1 HDD fits).

The 250GB is partioned into C=80GB and D=170GB. If I format and partion the 320GB to C=80GB and D= the rest, can I then just use Ghost to transfer C - C and D - D.

If you have any clue what I'm talking about please help

[CurlingSteve]

That will work just fine.

You'll need to "ghost" each partition separately (as opposed to the drive style many people use).

[iccaros]

I have a WD 250GB HDD in my computer right now and a 320GB HDD that I want to put in as my (small case only 1 HDD fits).

The 250GB is portioned into C=80GB and D=170GB. If I format and partion the 320GB to C=80GB and D= the rest, can I then just use Ghost to transfer C - C and D - D.

If you have any clue what I'm talking about please help

to add..

the knoppix cd has a drive imager .. connect both drives (leave case open if you must) .. boot the cd and image one drive to the next.. it will only copy used space.. its all GUI so it should be easy.

this is the program..

http://www.partimage.org

I like ghost (have the enterprise edition to do PXE loads, work bought it for me)

but If I did not have it I would not buy it for home use.

[Pete_C]

That will work just fine.

You'll need to "ghost" each partition separately (as opposed to the drive style many people use).

Yes, but won't this approach fail to ghost the boot sector? You will have to do a repair install or fix it from the recovery console (XP).

If you ghost the entire drive it would just resize the partitions. No need to partition and format in this case.

[TheTerrorist_75]

She is going to need to do a repair install or fresh install of XP anyhow due to installing the drive to a different motherboard setup.

[deaf_girl]

First off everything on the D drive is backup to an external HDD.

What about ghosting the C drive to a 80GB partition on the second HDD. Then format and partition the rest of the new drive and then just transfer everything from the external.

[deaf_girl]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I successfully transfered everything without a meltdown. Now I need some excuses to tell my brother what happened to his extra HDD.

[CurlingSteve]

Pete_C,

I haven't tried it that way.

My experiments this afternoon (chasing a different problem) make me think you're right.

Ghost 2003 anyway seems to want to reboot between sessions/partitions which leads me to believe this is how they handle the different partition sizes.

I haven't explored the process this deeply before.

I assumed (apparently wrongly) that cloning was the only way to get the boot sectors written.

Can one clone a partition? (I thought that was only a drive level function).

Cloning does include the boot partition, but I thought that also forced the same partition sizes.

------------

I'm experimenting with this as we speak, (replacing a 20 GB drive with a 60 on my Solo with a different partitioning structure).

I'll let you know.

I have a different mystery (problem) on this Solo 9550XL to get past first (which should be in another thread).

9550 doesn't boot to a CD regardless of the sequence set in the BIOS unless I F8 then CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Then it will boot the CD.

But it boots to a floppy on the "first try".

It doesn't matter which sequence I set the boot order to in the BIOS.

(And believe me, I've tried them all).

No matter where I put the CD drive in the sequence it won't boot to it without the "salute" interception.

(BIOS reflashes haven't solved it, I tried every version Gateway offers).

Edited December 31, 2005 by CurlingSteve

[iccaros]

There is a problem with NTFS V5 and just imaging to a new diffrent size partition.. but program like ntfsresizer will do it..

dd will also do it.. but you will have run a program on the NTFS data base to fix the size..

also you sould remove swap all together prior to imaging a partition..