Get rid of multiple hard drives

gevavery · 05-11-2008, 02:37 PM

Okay, I have three physical hard drives. The first on is 80GB , the second one is 200 GB and the third is 250 GB. The third drive is a SATA drive while the other first and second ones are IDE. They are all formatted as NTFS.

I just purchased a new 500 GB SATA drive and would like to eliminate the other three drives or at least two of the other three.

I'd like to avoid completely rebuilding my computer if possible. The original SATA drive contains my OS, which is Windows XP SP2. The 200 GB IDE drive contains all sorts of files (e.g. my iTunes library, personal data files, and some actual program files). The 80 GB IDE drive contains mostly program files.

The 80 GB drive contains only about 7 GB of data, the 200 GB drive only contains about 60 GB of data and the 250 GB SATA drive only contains about 65 GB of data. So none of the drive are anywhere near full.

I have the following full programs:
- Partition Magic 8
- Acronis Disk Director
- Acronis Migrate Easy, and
- Acronis True Image Home.

What would be the easiest, safest and best way to merge the drives into one without have to completely reload all the programs? I'd like to try and keep all my programs happy and not have them balk at the change in file location or drive letter.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can provide.

dai · 05-11-2008, 03:12 PM

when i eliminated a drive i just dragged the stuff across in windows explorer to a partition on the new drive

gevavery · 05-11-2008, 03:24 PM

Well, that would be fine if all I had was personal files but it won't work for applications that are mapped to a drive letter. I don't want to have to reload all my applications.

05-11-2008, 02:37 PM	#1 (permalink)
gevavery Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2 OS: WinXP SP2	Get rid of multiple hard drives Okay, I have three physical hard drives. The first on is 80GB , the second one is 200 GB and the third is 250 GB. The third drive is a SATA drive while the other first and second ones are IDE. They are all formatted as NTFS. I just purchased a new 500 GB SATA drive and would like to eliminate the other three drives or at least two of the other three. I'd like to avoid completely rebuilding my computer if possible. The original SATA drive contains my OS, which is Windows XP SP2. The 200 GB IDE drive contains all sorts of files (e.g. my iTunes library, personal data files, and some actual program files). The 80 GB IDE drive contains mostly program files. The 80 GB drive contains only about 7 GB of data, the 200 GB drive only contains about 60 GB of data and the 250 GB SATA drive only contains about 65 GB of data. So none of the drive are anywhere near full. I have the following full programs: - Partition Magic 8 - Acronis Disk Director - Acronis Migrate Easy, and - Acronis True Image Home. What would be the easiest, safest and best way to merge the drives into one without have to completely reload all the programs? I'd like to try and keep all my programs happy and not have them balk at the change in file location or drive letter. Thanks in advance for any suggestions you can provide.

05-11-2008, 03:12 PM	#2 (permalink)
dai Manager, Hardware Forums Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: west australia Posts: 38,658 OS: vista 32x ultimate retail	Re: Get rid of multiple hard drives when i eliminated a drive i just dragged the stuff across in windows explorer to a partition on the new drive __________________

05-11-2008, 03:24 PM	#3 (permalink)
gevavery Registered User Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 2 OS: WinXP SP2	Re: Get rid of multiple hard drives Well, that would be fine if all I had was personal files but it won't work for applications that are mapped to a drive letter. I don't want to have to reload all my applications.