Resolved Swapping C drive for G drive

Hi Guys,
I have an Hitachi 320gb C primary drive that is 42% free 170 gb used, and a Seagate 750gb G drive slave, that is 78% free 150gb used. Windows XP, and I have Acronis migrate easy which works well.
I would like to copy all the C drive info onto the G drive and Visa Versa, and end up with the larger drive as the primary (C) and the smaller one as the slave (G). I am happier with a primary HD that has a small percentage of used space.
I can clone each drive to an external hard drive and then copy back, but what do I do about jumpers etc to then get the computer to boot to the new primary.
I had envisaged cloning G to an external (call it F) clone C to G and then change jumpers and leads in the pc, restart with the pc booting to the 750gb (now the primary) and finally clone F back to the 320gb drive that now should be the slave.
Is this the way to do it ? It seems logical but the jumpers worry me.
Any advice would be appreciated
Regards
David D

 

I work on the opposite theory. I put Windows on a small drive and everything else on the larger drive. I have Windows (Vista) on a 50GB partition and the data, programs, etc on another partition. If I find Windows needs to be reformatted for some reason, I don't need to find and back up anything, I can just reformat, then reinstall programs to their original location on the second partition.

If you have Windows on it's own HDD and and data, programs etc on another, it can increase the overall speed because programs can be loaded or data accessed from one while Windows operates on the other. If you keep the Windows partition free of files and folders that "come and go" it will minimise fragmentation.

I would look at how I could reduce the amount of "stuff" on the current Windows HDD and move it to the secondary HDD. You can move your My Documents folder, you can uninstall and reinstall programs to a different partition, you can set temporary files (and folders) to a different partition. Windows works a lot better when there are a not a lot of transient files coming and going and causing fragmentation on it's partition (at least for Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7 run background defragmentation).

Keeping everything on the C: drive is Microsoft's "basic" setup to make it easy for inexperienced users, but if it comes to time reformat Windows, reformat means the whole drive (partition).

Anyway...to your question....
You should be able to make your changes, then boot to the Windows CD, go to the Recovery Console and run the FIXBOOT command. I say "SHOULD" because we don't know the details about the computer, but that might not even help. The FIXBOOT command only works with systems it considers "standard ", it might say the system is not standard.

Do you have a retail version of Windows? Is the system/computer an OEM version? Does it only have a Recovery Disk or was there no disk supplied with the system at all?

You can put the system details in your WindowsBBS user profile if you are going to ask questions about it
http://www.windowsbbs.com/adding_system_specifications.html

Matt

 

http://easybcd.en.softonic.com/

This free software will give you easy control over your hard drives and boot up. No need to worry about the jumpers.

That is all excellent advise from Mattman and I've learned from that, that it is possible to install software on a different partition and have it run just as well if not better. I was always of the impression that it slowed things down and that some software simply would not work, may be I have been misinformed. I can recall trying to install some software on a different drive to the OS but it gave me no choice.

Perhaps there is more to learn on this subject

 

Thanks for the advice.
I will try the free software and see if it will do what I need.
My C drive has everything on, and my G drive I use for backups, in case the primary fails, I will still have all my stuff accessable. Hence the G drive needs only to be big enough for the back up, whereas the C drive I use for everything else.
Regards
DD

 

Hi Guys,
Have not got round to trying anything out yet, but have just found the thread on Cloning 96147. Will try a mixture of the two and report back, but maybe not for a month or two.

 

OK Guys,
Tried again this morning to no avail. (have restored connections to how they were and both drives and PC working fine so all hardware is OK)
I cloned my C drive(320 Hitachi Deskstar) to my G drive(Seagate 750 Barracuda 7200) with Acronis Easy Migrate 7, which has worked very well when I put a new drive in my wifes laptop, and for backup to an External hrd drive (easybcd wouldn't work on my computer). I opened my PC and disconnected both drives from their power and Ultraata cable, and connected only the 750gb with the black (master) plug and the power. I set the jumper to 7&8 for master, (and also tried no jumper for cable select.) Both times on boot up the initial black screen says memory etc ok but halfway down the message comes up "Primary Master Drive Fails" So got no further and have restored to orig arrangement.
I would just like everything on the 750gb and backup on the 320 so if one drive fails the other is easily accessible still. Also, not being able to perform what I percieve to be a reasonably easy operation is very frustating.
System details in profile.
Any help/advice would be thankfully received
Thanks
David D

 

Your system details are not visible follow this instruction.

When you have done it right you will see "My System" appear in your profile box next to your posts.

 

Done,
Hope thats better
DD

 

Your system details can now be seen

Did you try this from Mattman's post:

What is the full error message you receive when the 750GB drive fails to work. Do a check in the bios when it is connected just to make sure it is recognised.

What problem did you have with EasyBCD.

 

I just came across something else which explains the problem. It could be that the boot sector drive letter has changed on the cloned drive.

Try mattman's suggestion and run fixboot then also run fixmbr then report back.

I just did an edit on this post, the solution I gave to change the boot partition drive letter was for win 2000, I'll try later to find one for XP.

 

ThanKs Mark,
I look forward to being able to first just make the PC accept and boot from the cloned 750gig hard drive, which comes up as C (F) at the moment (original set up). Once that is done I'm hoping just perhaps formatting the 320 gig will then allow it to be accepted as the slave routinely.
I must admit to not really understanding the instructions from Mattman, so extended instructions would be appreciated.
If this sounds too risky or complicated I may just live with the set up I have but would like to sort it out
Once again thanks for all your time.

 

Reboot the PC with the windows xp disc in the drive. Press the R key to start the Recovery Console and select the windows installation that is on your cloned drive. * At the command prompt type fixboot c: and hit enter, then confirm the question with Y and hit enter. That should do it, type exit and hit enter.

* At this point you will be asked for the administrator password. If you do not use one and therefore have nothing to enter it may cause an error, follow the link below to fix the problem.


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;308402

I used Spotmau Powersuite to clone my hard drive and I can just swap drives and it will boot OK. I suspect that Acronis did not copy or it altered the partition letter on the boot sector. There is another command fixmbr which you could try if fixboot does not work but there is a risk it will mess up your partitions.

 

Thanks Mark,
Just to clarify, I will re clone the 320 to the 750 drive just in case, and then disconnect the 320 and connect 750 on cable select, restart with the XP disc in the drive and follow your instructions. (I don't need to alter the boot preference in BIOS before I start)
Thanks.
I hope Spain is warm as it is freezing in the UK

 

You may not need to reclone the drive, it is probably just the boot sector that is the problem so no harm in trying the fix first.There is no need to alter the boot order as the boot sector on the hard drive is not working it should automatically boot from the disc, if not then change it to CD first.

Yup, Spain is warm now but has been cold for a few weeks with a lot of rain, thunderstorm raging as I type. I see the weather in the UK, glad I'm not there any more

 

Warm eh. Jealous.
How about trying Seagate Disc Wizard, Immage software first to see if it will boot first time, as it purports to transfer everthing on the disk, where cloning sometimes transfers only data,
Regards
DD

 

Up to you, but the fix with fixboot might be quicker and should give the same result. I'd be interested to see if it works.

 

Mark,
Now having trouble finding the XP disc. If I can't find it what do I do next.
Regards
DD

 

Well, if you can't find it you could borrow one but it must be the same version of windows that you have installed. If not go ahead with the re-cloning using the other software.

 

OK Mark,
I downloaded a recovery console from the net (as an Iso file, and burned it to CD). Recloned 320 to 750
Disconnected 320 and connected only 750 as primary to black socket cable connect. Restarted PC with CD in place. Followed instruction. typed fixboot c: and it showed that New boot was successfuly written. Rebooted and unfortunately said the same "Primary master drive fails and primary slave drive fails.
So no change or improvement.

 

Good thinking, thats handy to know the console can be downloaded. So, its still not behaving grrrrrrr. Fixboot was the repair command, no try fixmbr, that should create a new boot partition, the risk is that it might overwrite something or mess up your existing partitions but worth a try.

It may be possible to use this function to create the boot sector/partition and then clone the drive again without it overwriting the boot sector, not sure as I have never tried it this way round. Anyway, I would try the other command and see what happens.

This problem seems to me to be directly connected to the cloning software not making a mirror image and messing up the boot sector.

This error message is a bit confusing as it suggests you have two hard drives connected, but you said you only had one. Did you do a Low Level Format on the drive before recloning?

What partitioning tool do you have? Try Gparted, it is free and will give full control and access to partitions, it may also let you see what is on the drive and if there is a boot partition, it should appear the same as the drive you cloned from. I think Gparted also has a cloning facility.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted/gparted-0.7.0/

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This utility may help if nothing else works, it will create or copy a boot sector.

http://www.roadkil.net/listing.php/C2/Disk Utilities

It's the first utility in the list. There is also another disc cloning utility on the same page.