I want to upgrade the primary HDD's in both my desktop and server. I have the new drives ready to put in and want to undertake all of this tomorrow so I'm looking for any advice. Desktop PC Primary HDD contains 3 partitions. (80Gb Total) 1. EISA Configuration 2. OS (Windows XP MCE Install/Apps) (NTFS) 3. DELL Boot files (FAT32) I'm upgrading to a 1TB HDD Server PC Primary HDD contains 4 partitions. (80GB Total) 1. EISA Configuration 2. OS Files (DELL Boot files) (FAT32) 3. OS (Windows 2003 Server Edition) (NTFS) 4. OS (Windows XP Pro) (NTFS) I'm upgrading to a 1TB HDD I basically want to clone my current drives, exactly as it is so I can simply swap out the old for the new on both systems. I have Acronis True Image Home 10 which has cloning capabilities and a decent rep but I've never used the cloning tool before. Both systems have additional drives but it's only the OS install (boot drives) i'm looking to clone and replace. If I use Acronis True Image will it be as simple as cloning each drive, copying the image to the new drives and then swapping them around (physically)? or is therem ore to it? Will the boot loaders remain intact as they are after the clone and swap? Are there any problems I could run into that I should prep for? I was going to, hoping I can, burn the clone images once cloned to my new drives that will be attached to external shells via USB. Will there be any problems with that? Do the new drives need to be formated in any particualr way prior to copying the clone images to them? Does Acronis handle the formatting of the new drives also? Obviously as both upgrades are significant in size, what will become of the extra space, will it be left unpartitoned/formated or will Acronis ask me what I want to do with it? I can I simply create new partions with this space or add it onto current partitions? Any help appreciated.
both tb drives will be exact clones of original drives but have larger partions. once cloning is done then remove old drives & startup system with new drives booting.
So it is as simple as clone and swap then? Also you say "have larger partitions" do you mean the current partitions will be extended to fill the extra har disk space? How does that work if that's the case, I'm hoping I'm wrong and not following you properly on that because I don't want a boot partition, for example, to be suddenly bumped from 5gb to 50gb just to use up extra space.
mostly simple in cloning & swapping. i fairly certain the partitions will grow from the cloning but not certain as have not done a multi-partition cloning just single partitions.
You might want to check the wilders forums, I see this type of clones (dell computers) discuss there all the time. That's where I get all my imaging(cloning) troubleshooting information. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=238952
Thanks again, I've resolved this now. Used Acronis Migrate which allowed me to clone my existing disk and partitions and then manually adjust the size and location of the new partitions. One problem I ran into is that I couldn't clone to an external USB drive even though both my systems supported booting from USB device. Had to install the new HDD's internally.
