1.

Solve : Cloning large dynamic HDD to small basic HDD, need help.?

Answer»

My Windows 1TB hard drive decided to half-break a couple of days ago. The hard drive is spinning extremely slowly, and Windows Explorer keeps crashing unless I boot into Safe Mode.
I figured that I needed to get Windows to a new Hard Drive as SOON as possible, and I bought myself a 750GB hard drive.
I first tried to use a hard disk cloning device to clone the 1TB drive to the 750GB drive, but it obviously didn't work.
I read many tutorials online, and I found that CloneZilla will clone disks and partitions, and if I could shrink down the OS partition and keep the actual usage of the disk under 750GB (and leave 250GB unallocated), I could copy each of the Recovery, System Reserved, HP-TOOLS, and the C:\ partitions over to the new disk. I also learned that I could change a Dynamic Disk to a BASIC Disk without losing data by editing Hex Data, but it would be quite risky.

Right now:

  • The 1TB disk with Windows on it is half broken.
  • The 1TB disk with Windows is converted to Dynamic.
  • The 750GB disk is empty and is still a basic disk.
  • The 750GB disk doesn't seem to be convertable to dynamic.
  • The 750GB disk is connectable to COMPUTERS via USB, hence it is docked to a disk cloner/hub.
  • The 750GB disk shows up with the connector hub name. (JMicron USB Mass Storage Device)
  • The C:\ partition is in the middle, if I have to shrink it, I will have to use EaseUS Partition Manager to move the unallocated space to the end.
  • I have two laptops, a hub to connect up to two hard drives, two USB disks of 1GB and 4GB, and there is an optical drive on one of the laptops.

So, I need to somehow get Windows and all the partitions over to the new, faster, smaller hard drive.
What is the best way to get all the partitions over to the new hard disk?
A couple of things I thought of were:
  • Edit Hex Data and change the dynamic disk to a basic disk, and copy partitions
  • Edit Hex Data and change the basic disk to a dynamic disk, and copy partitions
  • If I really have to, I will insert the new hard drive, and use some recovery disks to reinstall Windows and its drivers...
What is the best way to "clone" the larger disk to the smaller disk, and could you PLEASE explain (mostly) step by step?

Thanks,
SarcasticphoenixMost drive manufacturers these days suppy cloning software to replicate the data from a prior drive to the new drive you bought from them. However if you have 900GB of 1TB full and are trying to squeeze it into 750GB thats not going to work. Generally these tools work great for smaller drives being cloned over to larger drives, but not the other way around.

If you want to transfer data from 1TB to the 750GB, I would install a clean build OS to the 750GB, then add the 1TB as a slave. Then use windows to transfer the data from the 1TB to the 750GB with most important data first, least important data last, SINCE this drive could fail at any time as you have had problems with it.

From my past experience using cloning software Ghost 2003 was great for Windows XP and older operating systems, but since then I have been using Seagate's clone software to create an exact same copy drive to drive. Only catch with these tools is that you have to have a drive present that is covered by this tool as for the tools look to make sure you are using it for their drives only. Otherwise you will get a message similar to No Valid Drive Present or something like that or Seagate Drive not detected as a way to avoid their software for being used with competetors drives. So you can have a Maxtor and a Seagate and it will be happy, but if you have a Maxtor and western Digital it probably wont work unless Seagate now recognized Maxtor as their own since they bought out Maxtor and offer replacement of Maxtor drives as I found out to my benefit of a 250GB drive which expired under the 3 year maxtor replacement warranty, but seagate offered 5 years after the buyout so a drive that was a paperweight was now one that I could get a replacement for for just $5 shipping.


Discussion

No Comment Found

Related InterviewSolutions