The Conservative Cave
The Help Desk => Computer Related Discussions & Questions => Topic started by: Chris on February 08, 2009, 05:22:16 PM
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I need to transfer my 40GB C: drive to a newer 250GB partition on a different drive. Where can I get a freeware or trial of a program that will do this for me? I'm not really in the mood to pay $150 for a program I'm only going to use one time.
I haven't had very good luck with some of these trial versions. They always seem to have the option I need greyed out.
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I haven't tried to image in a while but is Ghost still around and does it have a trialware version?
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Is something like this (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/DriveImageXML.html) what you are looking for? I've never used but maybe I should try it since I have plenty of hard drives lying around.
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If both drives are in the same machine, why not just run the diskcopy command?
I admit I haven't done that lately, but I've used it in the past to good effect.
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Is something like this (http://www.snapfiles.com/get/DriveImageXML.html) what you are looking for? I've never used but maybe I should try it since I have plenty of hard drives lying around.
Yes, as long as it supports moving bootable partitions. I'll try it when I get home.
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If both drives are in the same machine, why not just run the diskcopy command?
I admit I haven't done that lately, but I've used it in the past to good effect.
I don't think that works with bootable partitions. I have to move my OS and all my applications.
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I don't think that works with bootable partitions. I have to move my OS and all my applications.
Oy... You are probably correct about that when it comes to moving bootable paritions. I've never attempted that on a partitioned drive with diskcopy.
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I haven't tried to image in a while but is Ghost still around and does it have a trialware version?
I haven't checked... I haven't used a Symantec product in years. I seem to remember that they did not have one availible last time I needed it (I've been through a few hard drives with this machine). I remember using Western Digital's disk copy utility -- it would not let me copy a smaller partition over to a new, larger one. They had to be the same size and even then, it didn't work.
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The DriveImage XML product that Thundley posted looks like it might suit your needs.
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Xcopy32 might do the trick, but I think you'll have to be in safe mode to do it. You will probably have a problem with long file names. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289483
Disk wizard from Seagate should do the trick: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/discwizard
also, read here: http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/hd/cpyhd/index.html
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Normally I'd advise using Ghost, but that DriveImage XML package looks acceptable.
Xcopy I'm thinking would be a pain in the ass; if you use it include the /e/h/k/x/c switches and run it in a mode where files won't be locked by the OS which can cause it to stop mid way through
Windows is still probably going to give you issues when you get the partition copied; in that you may need to reactivate or at worst case repair your install.
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is your drive a seagate, or is any drive in the system a seagate?
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I'm pretty sure they're all Western Digital.
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I'm pretty sure they're all Western Digital.
any way you can get your hands on a seagate external HD? If you have any kind of seagate drive plugged in, they let you use a free utility from their website called diskwizard that easily does what you want to do.
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W-D has a similar utility that came with the drive, but I got a size reading error when I tried to transfer the partition to the new drive.
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Normally I'd advise using Ghost, but that DriveImage XML package looks acceptable.
Xcopy I'm thinking would be a pain in the ass; if you use it include the /e/h/k/x/c switches and run it in a mode where files won't be locked by the OS which can cause it to stop mid way through
Windows is still probably going to give you issues when you get the partition copied; in that you may need to reactivate or at worst case repair your install.
Xcopy and robocopy are good tools for moving large and changing data but not really a bootable partition copy
Personally for imaging software I love acronis true image. Though not sure they have a free version I use it for DR for several hundred servers, its live imaging and universal restore capabilities (slipstreaming non P&P drivers like RAID drivers) allow restoration to dissimilar hardware. (Done V to V, V to P and P to P with it)
Its worth it
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I know this is an old thread, but I did find something that makes an exact copy of the "c" drive. XXClone (http://www.xxclone.com/iproduct.htm) has both free and pro versions. I used the free version and it does allow you to make a bootable image. The only thing is, both the original XP and the clone show up in the boot menu on start up. I'm not sure how to go back to a straight boot to XP.
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The XP boot menu is editable. Thanks for the update.