shmef

So, when I was building my "rig" (This thing borders more on engine block than rig in size), I was foolish, thinking "Durr... Vista can't use THAT much space..." and went with a 150gb HD from Hitachi. Problems were soon encountered when the other programs started rolling in. With games almost at minimum being like 4 gigs (and some hitting the 12 gig mark *AHEM*Dead Space*AHEM) I found myself quickly running out of room.

The logical thing for me to do it seemed was to buy a new hard-drive. "Yay!" I thought, and purchased a 240gig or so WD hard drive. Moved all my music, movies and pictures to THAT drive, which has worked out allright thus far. However, Vista is installed on the 150 Gig drive, meaning thats where all my programs (especially games purchased through Steam) default to. I know I can install in a different directory, which has worked all right, but because the Steam folder is around 40 gigs or so, transferring THAT and then reinstalling Steam to find the game files on that drive (That was Valve customer supports solution) seems hardly an efficient way to deal with it.

So, my question is thus; would it be possible to either:
A) move my windows install to a bigger drive (I used an OEM version, 64 bit... figured that was an important piece of info)

B) Somehow make both drives the same drive (I have been told a RAID array would do this, but I have no idea where to start product wise)

C) I have a 1/2TB drive in an enclosure that I can tear out (I've seen it taken apart, it's not terrible, but once it's out, it is out for good.) and use in the stead of both drives, and then transfer everything onto that ONE drive somehow.

Thanks in advance for any amount of time you spent trying to figure out what I'm trying to do... you guys have always made my life at least 3.21 times easier when I use your help...

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800
SAMSUNG 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA

ASRock P43Twins1600 LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard

EVGA GeForce GTX 260 896MB 448-bit
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775
Tuniq Tower 120 Universal CPU Cooler 120mm Fan Controller/Heatsink

Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YD 250GB
HITACHI Deskstar 7K160 HDS721616PLA380 (0Y30006) 160GB 7200 RPM SAT

All in an Antec 1200 Full Tower with 4x 120mm intake and 2x 120mm exhaust and 1x 300mm top exhaust.

grimx133

Sort of. You can take a blank drive and transfer you OS drive's contents to it. I take drive images, which do so very easily, but have also done it with Drive Image XML, using the drive to drive copy function.
Have just the OS drive hooked up, disconnect your data drive for the time being. Put in the bare drive, then run DI xml's drive to drive copy, selecting the existing drive for source and the new one for destination. It'll exactly copy your os drives contents to the new one. Then unhook the old and connect the new in it's place, the system should boot as if it was the old. Once it boots successfully, you can either store the old as a spare OS if anything were to happen to the new one, or add in the old as a data drive and format it. With the data drive you have now, the new os drive will link to the data on it in the same manner the old drive does now, so that can be kept just like it is. To consolidate everything on one drive, you would have to copy all the data over to the new drive, which would break the links that programs need to access the data and you'd be in the same boat of having to create those all over again. Much easier to leave the existing data drive as is, using it in the same fashion it's being used in now. That would leave you with plenty of space on the c: drive for future storage and programs. As well as potentially a third drive.

I don't fool around with raid, seems an awful lot of complication for marginal benefit. An image on a separate drive backs up safer than two drives in raid1, and a broken raid0 means data loss. Way too risky for me. Also I believe that installing raid0 requires a fresh install? Not sure about raid1.

edit - yet again, another forgotten link. DI xml is a handy program.
http://www.runtime.org/driveimage-xml.htm

shmef

So you're suggesting I make an image of the first drive, put it on the 1/2TB using DI-XML, then format the original drive to be a data or some other expansion? That makes sense to me, but can I make the new one have the same drive letter (I think it would help with association of programs, namely music and such) as the original? And I figured as much, RAID confuses me to no end anyway...

HD_Monkey

Raid is not for the average user and can be quite difficult to set up properly. If you are only talking about 2 disks, then don't bother. With raid 1 you will see no more benefit than having a backup as grimx133 suggested. With raid 0 you risk losing everything if a disk fails. If you are not willing to spend the money on several disks (4+) and set up raid 5 (striping with parity) then it is pointless.

shmef

That's what I figured... So, I should mirror my current C drive onto the new one using your nifty little tool there... should I format it before or after I mirror it? I figure before right? After would wipe everything wouldn't it?

HD_Monkey

grimx133 suggested 2 options, clone old disk (150GB) to new disk (1/2 TB) and then format old disk (150GB) for extra storage OR clone old disk (150GB) to (1/2TB) and keep old disk (150GB) intact as a usable backup.

Remove the 240GB drive during cloning process and install after removing or formatting (150GB). Everything should be good to go with more space on system drive which will now be (1/2TB) regardless of the route you choose. You may have to select an option to use unallocated space during cloning process or later within disk management, but that is another matter.

Hope this cleared things up some.

shmef

Alright, I did as you said, however I am having an issue with the DriveImageXML program. When I have gone through the steps to set up the Drive to Drive mirror, I get an error from the program telling me that vssc.exe was not running. I did a bit of searching, found out that it was Windows Volume Shadow Copy that was needing to run. I tried to run it manually, but every time I would start it up, it would simply stop running a few seconds later. Drive Image tells me I can still run it, but it might get errors, and seeing as this is a pretty important drive, I'd rather have it done right. Any suggestions?

grimx133

You're doing a copy to a fresh blank drive, if something goes awry, you can just try it again. It is not destructive to the old (source drive). I've never had the vssc error, so not sure if it was running. If you do need to run it, go to the run dialog box and put in services.msc and look for the service in there, change it's properties so that it runs on boot, maybe it'll keep running that way, it may be disabled there now.

shmef

mkay. I decided to give it a go without, in hopes of it maybe working. If not, I'll just start over.

Another issue, I can change the drive letter without reformatting can't I? Or will the image on the drive actually make it that letter of the old one? I mean, the programs will have the right associations to simply plug it into the SATA port of the old one, and just run it? Or is there something else I have to do once I have the image?

grimx133

ok, let's say the old OS drive is c: as usual. Shut down and unplug your current data drive, don't need or want it showing for changing the os drive. Boot up and make sure that your OS drive is the only one showing. I'd say install DI xml now, but it's already installed, which is fine. Shut down again and connect the new drive. Boot up and make sure it's showing, may have to format it in disk management first. Doesn't matter what the drive letter is right now.

Run the drive to drive copy with old as source and new as destination. When it's done shut the computer down and disconnect the old drive. Hook up the new drive exactly as the old one was, I do the same port and everything. Boot up with only the new drive connected, it should work, and show as c:.

Next shut down and connect your old data drive. Boot up, and make sure that it is recognized and accessible. If it doesn't have the same drive letter as it did with the old os drive, go into disk management and change that drive letter to what it originally was, this preserves the program associations so that everything will work as it did before.

You're done. You can stick the old os drive back in and format it for storage space, or just leave it like it is and use it as the os drive again, should something happen to the new os drive.

shmef

Thank for the replies Grim and HD for all the help and replies. I did what Grim suggested, and bam shalam it's working like a Clam. That's a good thing, badly told for the sake of rhyme.

Thanks a bundle! You guys always help in a pinch!

grimx133

You're very welcome. DI is a nice little chunk of freeware, couldn't believe how simple it was the first time I tried it.