[emosun]

i got a 40gig maxtor hdd that i want to make a copy of it to my 120gig seagate hdd. im going to be takeing out the 40gig and i want to keep all of my settings and everthing and dont want to reinstall windows. so how do i just copy that drive to my 120gig? is there a program?

 

[blackduck30]

Have a look at XXCLONE , it has a free version and it works great, make sure you read the instruction on making your clone bootable

www.xxclone.com

 

[emosun]

thank you ill give it a try and lt you know what happens

 

[emosun]

ok how do i copy my 40gb c drive to the 120 gig without looseing the information thats already on the 120 gig

 

[linderman]

Hello


cloning wont disturb your data on your primary drive ????? :embarased


review this and enjoy

http://www.techsupportforum.com/content/Hardware/Articles/47.html

 

[kraftwerk]

If you already have data on the 120 and want to keep it, I'd start by repartitioning the 120 to give room for the stuff to be cloned off the 40. I've used BootItNG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html to do a repartioning job "on the fly" for 5-6 years now, without a problem. With BING, you can repartition the free space on the 120, then reshuffle the free space to the front, and have the existing data safe.

After that, use whichever cloning app you like to clone the stufff from the 40 to the 120. Of course, it is always advisable to back up all data, just in case!

 

[linderman]

I got the impression the 120gig the OP is using is probably a new drive with no data on it / which means it will easily take the contents of the old boot drive's 40 gig and give you the rest of the drive to use at the same time


thats not a difficult project even for a less experienced computer user

 

[emosun]

the 120gig has files on it i cant put anywhere, i can move the small files to another drive that i got but the large ones hafta stay on the 120gig. so if i free up 40 gigs on the 120 gig then will that xxclone program copy the 40gig without removeing my files?

 

[linderman]

you would need to use a partitioning program like partition magic 8.0

there are many others, but none that are as easy to follow whats going on as with PM

I think given the low cost of another drive; you would be better off getting a new boot drive and leave your 120 gig data drive alone ?

smarter move than spending money on software ?????

 

[kraftwerk]

Agree with linderman, you should be able to get a reasonably-sized (80+) HDD for not many $$ in most hisgh-street suppliers, and even for less if you shop around on the 'net. Also, a reasonably new, but "previously enjoyed" drive (but NOT a car!) would probably be even less.

 

[emosun]

but i already have this 120gig and another 300 gig. the problem is the 300 gig is formated in fat32 and wont take files bigger then 4gb. and the 300 gig is half full to. so i really have nowhere to go with my data its kinda stuck here and there. and im trying to get rid of the 40 gig because im worried of its realiability it being almost 6 years old.

 

[blackduck30]

Why not create a 100/150G NTFS partition on the 300G then copy your files off the 120G onto that. That will let you clone the 40G drive over to the 120G without making any extra partitions on the 120, that will let you keep the full 120G for a system drive. If you do be sure to defrag the 300G drive first.

 

[emosun]

ok ill try that and let youguys know what happens

 

[linderman]

why not convert the fat32 drive to NTFS you wont lose any data ?

 

[emosun]

if i format the fat32 drive to ntfs wont i loose the data? or can i just convert it without formating

 

[linderman]

convert >>>>>>>>> NOT FORMAT


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb456984.aspx