Replace/clone system HDD?

SlackMasterF · 27th January 2006

Hello,

I have a Windows 2003 SBS with a 160GB drive which I purchased from Dell. Unfortunately when they installed the OS, they decided to partition the drive into a 12GB C: drive (system/boot) and a 136GB D: drive. Obviously this has caused problems since this system also runs Exchange and the 12GB partition is way too small and has been a real pain in my @ss. I managed a long time ago to move all the Exchange data files to the larger partition, but the 12GB partition just keeps causing problems.

My question is this, I recently put a new 250GB HDD in and I was wondering if there is any way to move (merge) the two partitions into the one new larger drive? Basically, is there ANY way to do this without having to reinstall the OS on the new drive?

Any suggestions? (Aside from "Always reformat the machine you get from Dell in the future!")

Thanks

-Rob

**charlesvar** · 27th January 2006

Hello Rob,

If you know the drive manufacturer, go to their web site and look for cloning and partitiong tools.

SIW is a program that will give you complete system info - should tell you the drive info.
http://www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala/about_siw.html

Regards - Charles

McTavish · 28th January 2006

It should not be impossible to merge the two partitions but it may take a lot of work to correct all the references in the OS to the data on the other partition. If it’s just a data partition it may not be too bad, but if you have installed programs to this partition or have system folders on there then you may have problems.

Your easiest solution would be to clone both partitions to the new hard drive and specify new sizes for them in the process. Make the C: partition any size you want.

SlackMasterF · 30th January 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by McTavish

Your easiest solution would be to clone both partitions to the new hard drive and specify new sizes for them in the process. Make the C: partition any size you want.

Do I need any special third party application to do this or can this be done using Windows tools only?

McTavish · 31st January 2006

Good question, I don’t know if it could be done with just Windows tools, or with a combination of the drive manufacturer’s free cloning tool and Windows. If it is possible it would not be a simple operation.

There are a few free cloning tools that should do it, but I would recommend either Norton Ghost or my personal choice Partition Manager.