I need to find a good partition software. What I want to do is move all of
drive C on to a bigger hard drive that I have in my computer right now, First
partitioning it, copy drive C to the new partion, and then renaming it drive C
and use the old drive C for storage
For the partitioning process it doesn't really matter which program
you use. There are a few exceptions, but if you want to keep your
original OS you should be fine with the partitioning program of your
OS. So if you're on Win9x you can use fdisk.exe; if you are on Win2k
or WinXP you'll use the Disk Management section of the Computer
management console (can be accessed via Control Panel).
After that you format the new disk with an appropriate file format
using format.com on Win9x or again Disk Management section of the
Computer management console on Win2k/WinXP. You may have to restart
your computer once or twice during this process.
Next step is to *copy* the content of your C: drive to the new disk.
I advice using the free version of Xxcopy with the /clone switch:
http://www.xxcopy.com
http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy01.htm (for detailed syntax)
Be sure to close all programs and to disable all unneeded processes,
beforehand. (Especially active AntiVir programs can slow down the
clone process by hours!)
Now you can proceed two ways. Either you make the new disk 'active'
(if it isn't up to now) and disable the 'active' switch on your
old C: drive (which will currently be set) - with the afore used
partitioning program. Or you power down your computer and change
the master slave jumpers and the cable wiring of your hard disks
in a way that the new disk becomes more 'important' (best: primary
master). Some bios versions allow changing boot priority without
changing jumpers on your disks. This is especially the case if
your new disk is a SATA while the old may be still an IDE one.
Using the second way you still have to ensure that the new disk
has an 'active' entry. You just don't de-activate the first.
Although it is a bit more work to use the second way it will be
more failsafe in case something goes wrong, because you just
have to undo these wiring and jumper changes. In the first case
you have to undo the 'active' settings which will require the
use of boot disks with appropriate tool(s).
Coming to this: you *ought to* save all your important data
beforehand (burn on CD/DVD, use USB stick,...) and create a
set of boot disks for your OS. (If you don't have one, already.)
If you have a somewhat old computer you should ensure (inside
the BIOS - before all these steps!) that the disk is recognized
with its true size. Otherwise you have to update the BIOS
before you do anything else! The same goes with your OS. If the
partitioning program of your OS doesn't recognize the *true*
size of your disk, you have to get an update for the disk
driver (maybe the manufacturer of your hard drive has one) or
switch to a newer OS.
You could still use a large disk, which is not fully recognized
by your OS, though. You would have to create one or more smaller
partition(s), right to the largest size your OS can read. The
additional space would be unrecognizable for you OS. In such
a situation you *should* use a third party partitioning tool.
I like Ranish Partition Manager:
http://www.ranish.com/part
You need to use the Beta version for large disks.
If the boot to your new disk works with no problems (test your
installed programs, too) you can de-activate your first disk.
This step is especially convenient if you create more than one
partition on your new disk or add another one, later.
You should keep the data on your old C: drive as long as you're
sure everything works fine...
HTH.
BeAr
