How can I Copy C: to another drive?

[FlameOut]

Right now in my system, I have 3 hard drives, broken into 5 partitions. My C: drive is on a seperate 30 gig drive, that I want to remove from my computer completly. I was wondering how I can copy my c: to one of the other partitions and have that as my boot drive.

The other drives are (this is how the size is listed under disk managment) Disk1, which is 149.5 gigs, with partitions D: (66.48 gigs) E: (40.32 gigs) and F: (42.25 gigs) and Disk2, which is one partition of 74.53 gigs.

Would I first have to remove all files from one of those partitons, or can I (easily) create another partition and make that c:?

Win XP Pro SP1
P4 , running at 3.36 GHz
1 gig ram

[suzuki1]

Norton ghost will do it from a boot disk

[FlameOut]

A follow up here. I removed everything from the E: partition, so I guess I can somehow copy C: to E: and rename E: to C:?

[rmanet]

It depends, of course. Where is your OS installed, then what files, apps programs are you storing on the other drive/partitions?

If you remove your C: drive altogether the D: partition on your second drive should become the new boot drive, or C. If you, as an example, had just music or movie files or pics you could create a new partition using partition magic and copy the old C over to the new drive and the new bootable partition C using Ghost, or in most cases, the install CD that came with the new drive.

If you instead have apps installed all over the place and try to do the same drive letters will change and you'll need to uninstall and reinstall apps, etc. Details on what you've got and where?

[FlameOut]

I don't have Norton Ghost Most of my apps and other programs won't be affected if I can copy the entire C: drive to the old E: partition, and make that the boot drive. All I had on E: were backups, digital pics, mp3's and other things that shouldn't be affected. Are there any shareware or free programs that can do this? I really didn't want to have to buy something (unless there is no other option)

I don't mind buying programs, but I don't think I really would use it that much to justify buying it, although, I do buy lots of stuff I don't seem to use, like Studio 9 and a Canopus ADVC-100. (thought I was gonna transfer all my VHS tapes to DVD - lol, that never happened)

[suzuki1]

see next

[suzuki1]

Correction: ok ghost the c: to the other drive and remove the dive you want to remove and take the drive you ghosted and put it in its place make sure it is set as master

[suzuki1]

I was looking at maxtor web site and they have an iso to make a bootable disk that has a copy utility to make an exact copy of your drive

[FlameOut]

All of my drives are Western Digital, and on the "Data LIfeguard" tools (that came on the CD) there is a "Drive to Drive" copy option. Would that work? Making a mirrior image of my C: drive?

I'm trying it right now, even though I think I should wait for a reply

[suzuki1]

yes thats what you need

[Bovon]

Umm, not 200% sure I have followed all of this...but normally the boot drive or partition has to be made active. If correct, then copying over to another partition/drive will not work unless that partition/drive is made active.

How I setup my drives is similar (in a way) to what you are wanting..

I take a large drive...say 80 gb, I partition that into 8, 10 gb partitions. I make the first partition active, and that makes that partition the C: drive...and, bootable.

That is why I mention that by just copying your OS from the C: to the E: drive may not work properly.. it may, and I just do not have a good concept on the complete configuration

[FlameOut]

Originally posted by suzuki1
yes thats what you need

I appears that it copied the drive. Only problem now, I removed my C: drive, set the drive that I copied the c; drive files to as 'master', but when I try to boot, I get that 'NTLDR is missing' message.

Is there something else that needs to be done to allow the OS to be booted from the new drive?

[suzuki1]

Looks like the software you used didnt copy everything. I always use ghost and have had no problems. Ghost make an exact image of one drive to another. I would put the drive back in and use ghost from a bootable 3.5 If you want I will make an ISO out of my bootable cd with Ghost and BBIE (Barts boot extractor) a small utility that will copy the boot file from any bootable cd!! very handy.

[FlameOut]

Originally posted by suzuki1
Looks like the software you used didnt copy everything. I always use ghost and have had no problems. Ghost make an exact image of one drive to another. I would put the drive back in and use ghost from a bootable 3.5 If you want I will make an ISO out of my bootable cd with Ghost and BBIE (Barts boot extractor) a small utility that will copy the boot file from any bootable cd!! very handy.

It said it copied everything, but for some reason I can't make it a bootable. I found another utility in the Data lifeguard CD that will make a new drive bootable. Only problem is, it says it will erase any existing data on the drive. I was able to select the partition on the drive I want bootable, but even just selecting that partition, it will erase the entire drive (There are 3 partitions on the drive)

Maybe I'll look into buying Ghost, or else just leave things the way they are

[FlameOut]

Originally posted by Bovon
Umm, not 200% sure I have followed all of this...but normally the boot drive or partition has to be made active. If correct, then copying over to another partition/drive will not work unless that partition/drive is made active.

How I setup my drives is similar (in a way) to what you are wanting..

I take a large drive...say 80 gb, I partition that into 8, 10 gb partitions. I make the first partition active, and that makes that partition the C: drive...and, bootable.

I looked, using 'Disk Management' but I see no way to make it Active? My C: drive presently shows "Healthy (System)" while D: shows "Healthy (Active)" and all other partitions just say Healthy