Moving Windows 7 to a new SATA drive

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Don't die of shock. I'm still alive.

I hate to make my 1st post in ages because of a technical question, but I'd prefer not to screw this up.

My Windows 7 (Enterprise, 64-bit) OS lives on an undersized SATA drive (I made a poor decision when I bought the PC by not getting a larger HDD) and I want to clone the drive and move it to a larger drive I just acquired (250 GB Western Digital SATA HDD). I've been doing a bit of research and was wondering if Acronis True Image would be a good solution.

Has anyone around here done this before (I can only imagine the answer is "yes")? Advice, step-by-step instructions, and a wee bit of hand holding (virtually, of course) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

-Trip

 

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Yes, i have, but im procrastinting (avoiding study) so ill get back to you if no-one else posts.
They also have a tool for this Quickly and easily deploy a new hard disk on your PC or laptop: automatically migrate all data, operating systems, programs, settings, and everything else

 

Seems like a good fit. Thanks.

 

I used this Easeus Disk Copy to copy a failing drive to a new larger drive and it worked like a charm and free aswell

 

+1 for Acronis for this task. It has a clone function, where you can just connect up your new disk and clone it direct to the other, or simply take an image of the existing drive then restore it to your new drive.

The wizards provided are very good, I doubt you'll need any instructions.

but just in case:

Acronis Step-By-Step Instructions, Clone Hard Drive

 

I've been favorably impressed with Acronis True Image from what I've read, diesel. I just have one question. Does it matter which SATA controller connection is used by the original and the replacement HDD? Right now, the drive with the OS is plugged into SATA0. I have another storage drive attached to SATA1 and 2 optical drives are connected to SATA3 and SATA4. SATA5 is available and I could connect the replacement drive there, but does it matter in what order the drives are attached to the controller?

I know, I worry about these little details.

Thanks.

 

Is Norton Ghost still kicking about? My backup routine used to consist of connecting a 2nd drive and cloning it. This was back on XP, with two 40GB drives, but it worked...

 

We use norton ghost at the schol im at, we do a systems prep ad put all the software thats needed and update it, then make the image, and stick it on in uni cast, we drag it from the server. But i cant see it being different. Our sizes though are 31 gig, i think, so if you have a 250 HD, then you should be ok

Ed

 

No, it should be fine. If i remember correctly it will give you a choice and as well as the drive number, it also displays the drive model.

I had Sata 0 & 1 in use already and had no probs.

 

Cool-o. Sounds good. I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

you could have just called.. i drove past McMillan/Eagle twice today

 

You mean you use SCCM with multicast so you're not destroying your network pushing huge images over the wire, in an OSD task sequence so you don't have to patch and recapture your gold image every time a piece of software gets an update?

Qs

 

Im gutted that no one has mentioned using Imagex yet ;)

 

@Phoenix, I'm a little embarrassed to call you whenever I have a little technical question. Besides, I will probably mine your vast experience for a much larger project I have in mind ;)

Since you seem to be in town, how about lunch sometime?

@Everyone: I still need to buy the software but after that, I'll go ahead and do the transfer. Probably take some pics and write a blog about it, just for any other poor soul who would like a "show me how" tutorial.

 

um, well I leave for Seattle on Friday morning until next Wednesday
we can probably do tomorrow, or next week some time
and you can pick my brains whenever you want buddy, no embarrassment needed! what are friends for? (Remember I stand up in front of half the techs in Boise every few months just to let them pick my brains) LOL

 

Good god why man?? Its great for creating baseline images but to move an existing OS to another drive?? god no, give me Acronis every time.

 

Thanks, Ryan. Probably next week then. My days are kind of full this week, plus I have a very interesting writing project I'm doing. Have fun in Seattle.

 

Well so far I'm unhappy. I've installed the SATA drive, made sure the BIOS recognized it exists (sees them as three SCSI drives) and formatted the disk as a simple NTFS volume. I purchased, downloaded and installed Acronis True Image 2011, read the instructions for cloning a disk (which seem easy) and went to it.

I've tried it five times, both as an automatic and manual process. Everything seems to work up until I actually start the cloning. After a few seconds, a notice appears saying the operation has been paused and if I don't reboot in 10 minutes, it will fail. The process at this point, isn't running at all according to Task Manager.

I checked the Acronis forums and they suggest making a rescue CD and booting from that to do the cloning. Problem is, when I try to make the disk Acronis can't see my DVD drive, so that's out of the question as well. It will let me make an ISO, but I'm not sure what good that will do.

Fortunately, this product has a 30 day guarantee is if it goes completely south, I can get my money back.

Oh duh. Don't think my DVD drive is a burner so that probably is why I'm having the problem creating a bootable disk.

Giving up for the night. Maybe a solution will present itself tomorrow.

 

Make the usb key instead, I always carry one around with me. I never try and clone an OS when it's live, only via the USB key.