Switching existing drives?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

I stupidly established my primary HD (7.2 Gb) and made the slave HD (14 Gb).
I now need more space. Can I switch to the larger HD now? What options do I
have?
 
Are you wanting to copy everything over to the 14GB drive and connect it as
the Master making the 7GB the Slave? If so yes you can do that however you
will need third party software to facilitate the drive copy or you can
reconnect the drives and do a fresh install of XP on the 14GB once it is
connected as Master.

There are a few free drive copy programs kicking around. Do a google search
and see what you come up with.
 
Hey Jerry, I know that! I guess I should have asked if I can use the File
Transfer Wizard to move system files to the larger drive? What problems will
arrive if I do this wrong?
 
jcwinters said:
I stupidly established my primary HD (7.2 Gb) and made the slave HD
(14 Gb).
Click to expand...


Sorry, what do you mean by that sentence? Did you partition a single drive
as 7.2GB and 14GB? If so, that has nothing to do with Primary vs. Slave.

I now need more space. Can I switch to the larger HD now?
What options do I have?
Click to expand...


Are you running out of space on C:? With a drive as small as 21GB, I think
it's a mistake for most people to have more than a single partition. If I
were in your shoes, I would change to one partition. Reversing to the two
drives is likely to be only a stopgap measure.

Unfortunately, no version of Windows provides any way of changing the
existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way to
do this is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the best-known such
program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program is
BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day trial,
so you should be able to do this within that 30 days. I haven't used it
myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but it comes
highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
wrong.

Moreover, with a total of only 21GB, no matter how its partitioned, it's
likely that you will soon need a larger drive. Fortunately they are very
inexpensive now, so you best solution might simply be to buy a drive of at
least 80GB or so.
 
Sir, what keyword or name must I use in Goggle to find the third-party
software that you speak? Thank you for your response.
 
No sir! I have two physical drives on my system. Do you know of any
third-party software names that would be useful for my problem? Thank you
for your response.
 
'Ken Blake' wrote, in part:
| Moreover, with a total of only 21GB, no matter how its partitioned, it's
| likely that you will soon need a larger drive. Fortunately they are very
| inexpensive now, so you best solution might simply be to buy a drive of at
| least 80GB or so.
_____

A 300 GByte hard drive can be bought for less than the cost of 'Partition
Magic' B^)

Phil Weldon

| jcwinters wrote:
|
| > I stupidly established my primary HD (7.2 Gb) and made the slave HD
| > (14 Gb).
|
|
| Sorry, what do you mean by that sentence? Did you partition a single drive
| as 7.2GB and 14GB? If so, that has nothing to do with Primary vs. Slave.
|
|
| > I now need more space. Can I switch to the larger HD now?
| > What options do I have?
|
|
| Are you running out of space on C:? With a drive as small as 21GB, I think
| it's a mistake for most people to have more than a single partition. If I
| were in your shoes, I would change to one partition. Reversing to the two
| drives is likely to be only a stopgap measure.
|
| Unfortunately, no version of Windows provides any way of changing the
| existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way
to
| do this is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the best-known
such
| program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One such program
is
| BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a free 30-day
trial,
| so you should be able to do this within that 30 days. I haven't used it
| myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such program), but it comes
| highly recommended by several other MVPs here.
|
| Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
| beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
| wrong.
|
| Moreover, with a total of only 21GB, no matter how its partitioned, it's
| likely that you will soon need a larger drive. Fortunately they are very
| inexpensive now, so you best solution might simply be to buy a drive of at
| least 80GB or so.
|
|
| --
| Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
| Please reply to the newsgroup
|
|
 
It would help if we understood what you are trying to achieve, or what *you*
mean by switch hd.
You can custom install apps to your other drive, you can also move My
Documents to the other drive.
 
Thank you for your response. Okay.

I have a clone system with two HDs. #1 Master HD - 7GB and #2 - slave HD -
14GB. I should have used the larger of the two as the master. I now want to
make the larger of the two HDs the Master Drive.

Can I make a switch of the data on the current Master to the new, and make
the current slave the Master?
 
'jcwinters' wrote:
| I have a clone system with two HDs. #1 Master HD - 7GB and #2 - slave
HD -
| 14GB. I should have used the larger of the two as the master. I now want
to
| make the larger of the two HDs the Master Drive.
|
| Can I make a switch of the data on the current Master to the new, and make
| the current slave the Master?
_____

Sure you can swap.
But it is not a good idea.
And probably not necessary.

Don't make this a guessing game.
You aren't asking the correct question.
If you would provide information you might get a usable answer.
Information such as
#1. How much of the capacity of each drive is used?
#2. What do you have on the smaller drive?
#3. What do you have on the larger drive?
#4. What do you want to do that you can't do now?

If your system is actually running Windows XP, then surely it will support a
larger drive. A new drive will include software to 'clone' the system drive
to the new drive. Then you can do whatever you wish with the old system
drive. Or you could get someone to give an unused drive to you and do the
same thing, albeit with a bit more difficulty.

Phil Weldon

| Thank you for your response. Okay.
|
| I have a clone system with two HDs. #1 Master HD - 7GB and #2 - slave
HD -
| 14GB. I should have used the larger of the two as the master. I now want
to
| make the larger of the two HDs the Master Drive.
|
| Can I make a switch of the data on the current Master to the new, and make
| the current slave the Master?
|
|
|
| "DL" wrote:
|
| > It would help if we understood what you are trying to achieve, or what
*you*
| > mean by switch hd.
| > You can custom install apps to your other drive, you can also move My
| > Documents to the other drive.
| >
| > | > > Sir, what keyword or name must I use in Goggle to find the third-party
| > > software that you speak? Thank you for your response.
| > >
| > > "jcwinters" wrote:
| > >
| > > > I stupidly established my primary HD (7.2 Gb) and made the slave HD
(14
| > Gb).
| > > > I now need more space. Can I switch to the larger HD now? What
options
| > do I
| > > > have?
| >
| >
| >
 
jcwinters said:
Thank you for your response. Okay.

I have a clone system with two HDs. #1 Master HD - 7GB and #2 - slave HD -
14GB. I should have used the larger of the two as the master. I now want to
make the larger of the two HDs the Master Drive.

Can I make a switch of the data on the current Master to the new, and make
the current slave the Master?
Click to expand...

It depends on how much free space you have on each drive. Ghost 2003 can
make a file or set of files from a partition. If there is enough space for
these
target files so you can copy them from one drive to another, you may have a
shot at doing this. This assumes that the target file/s are too big to fit
on a cd
or dvd and you do not have a cd/dvd burner for this.

1. boot to the Ghost program either from floppy or cd.
2. make an image of the C: drive (7G) and put it on the D: drive (14G)
I ususally make a directory called IMAGES for this off the root dir.
3. turn off the computer
4. physically change the hard drives so they are the way you want
5. boot to a floppy/cd that has the correct drivers for your file system
so that you get a command prompt (easiest with FAT32)
6. copy the image/s you created from the new C: drive to the new D: drive
7. boot to the Ghost program
8. use the image you created on the new D: drive and restore the C:
partition.
9. reboot.

This assumes that both hd's have one partition each. You can do it with
NTFS
but it is a lot easier if they are both FAT32. Makes steps 5 and 6 a lot
easier.
This process would be a LOT less scary/riscy if you had a third hd as a go
between. 15G hd's are practically give aways now-a-days.

later.....
 
Back
Top