[dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD

Hi Arthur

I'm not an expert in this area, but I have done similar things.  I used
Drive Image 7 (not its sibling Partition Magic).  

Before you start copying stuff, you might want to partition the new disc
into partitions that will in due course become C:\ and D:\  But don't give
them drive letters yet:  it's too easy to get snarled up.  Under Win XP, use
Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Computer Management \ Disk
Management.  But hey, I'm sure you knew that.  :-)

I think your strategy is sound.  OK, so D:\ will be out of action
temporarily, but when you've imaged the old C:\ onto the new potential C:\
you can try switching over to it.  If it fails, go back to old C:\ while you
figure out why;  if it works, go on to stage 2.  

I'd get on to Stage 2 right away, while you're on a roll!  Use Disk
Management to mess with the drive letters:  give the new potential D:\ some
temporary letter, say T:\.  Physically swap the old drives over, so you can
copy the D:\ contents onto T:\.  OK? Then change the old D:\'s drive letter
to X:\, and change T:\ to D:\  You should now have a fully working system
with C: and D: drives both on your new disk, and all the pointers happy and
unchanged: no complexity.  (BUT you still have both old disks, just in case
..)

"Honor your partners, first couple in the middle and swing, then swing your
first corners, ..." - just need an accordion and the all-important *caller*!

I'd leave the burners out of the equation.  Sharing a hard drive and an
optical drive on the same ribbon cable can slow down the hard drive a lot.

HTH, and good luck!

John


-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
Sent: 05 March 2006 00:08
To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: [dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD


My main squeeze has twin 80 GB drives. Today I bought a 250 GB drive. I want
to burn the image of c:\ to the new drive, then swap them, reboot and be
back where I was a few minutes ago with everything working correctly. I have
an ancient version of Ghost. The current setup is NTFS everywhere. The
ancient version alleges to support NTFS but if memory serves there was a
change a few years back in the NTFS structure; so I am a teensy bit nervous
that the old version won't support the changed structure. My plan thus far
is this (dictated by the complete absence of free space
anywhere): unplug HD #2 (d:\), replace it with the big new drive, run Ghost
or Partition Magic and copy everything from c:\ to the new drive, then swap
the new drive for the old drive c:\, reboot and experience joy. Before I do
anything, I request some feedback -- an assurance this will work, a better
approach, whatever. I am NOT a hardware guy. I prefer to confine my
perspective to the subtleties of SQL etc. The current box has twin 80 GB
disks, both of which have about 6 GB free. Ideally, I would like to move
everything from the existing c:\ to the new disk, then do the same with
everything on the d:\ disk (but I expect that to be more complex, since
numerous pointers will be looking for d:\ not c:\). On Step Two I don't care
to do it immediately, since it will continue to work as is, assuming that I
correctly image existing drive c:\ to the new drive, then remove the old
drive and plonk in the new one. Holes in logic? Superior strategies? More
optimized solution? All advice gratefully accepted. (I also have a CD burner
and a DVD burner connected. Perhaps I should unhook one of these rather than
d:\ and go about it that way.)? TIA, Arthur

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