Just got a new 2T HDD - easiest way to transfer all media from 500g?

Cool I understand what you're saying.

What about this:

JohnnyScience said:

Ok so I just went through every folder I moved (theres about 10 of them) and right clicked & hit properties on the old & the new and all of the folder sizes we the same, but for some reason the HDD's are still reading different overall used space?? Weird.

Anyways, now I wanted to format the old 500g media HDD (yes everything is backed up, twice!)

But under disk managment when I right click on that particular HDD, the Format option is ghosted out?

Any ideas on how to get this to un-ghost?

The only thing I can think of is that the difference in size is the data pulled over compared to the source drive. The Source drive will also have other things, such as a system voilume information which will be different from your two newer drives, which may also contain shadow copies of files previously. that will take up a percentage of the disk space and would be something you wouldn't pull over initially. Also with the other two drives, you probably have not enabled indexing or shadow copy, which will mean less disk spaced used due to lack of shadow copies or an indexing database.

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and listings, using Snipping Tool in Start menu.

Your 500gb drive may have the System partition on it which is blocking deletion. It needs to be recovered into Win7 first, then force deleted. You don't want it formatted if you plan to reimage Win7 to it, just wiped to overwrite any code conflict or infection: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

But let us see the screenshot first as there may be surprises.

JohnnyScience said:

Is there anything wrong with doing a "Quick Format"?

I unchecked it and it was just taking wayyy too long because its 2T.

But are there any disadvantages to using quick format? I'm just formatting the entire thing as one big partition.

For future reference, I find windows tediously slow when it comes to formatting drives. I generally use Acronis Disk Director for those duties. I've had no file system incompatibilities formatting for Win7 to NTFS at 4k cluster size, and it will format in a very small fragment of the time it takes Windows. I see that Paragon has the ability to format. Perhaps next time, you could try it and see if it is faster.

James

gregrocker said:

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and listings, using Snipping Tool in Start menu.

Your 500gb drive may have the System partition on it which is blocking deletion. It needs to be recovered into Win7 first, then force deleted. You don't want it formatted if you plan to reimage Win7 to it, just wiped to overwrite any code conflict or infection: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

But let us see the screenshot first as there may be surprises.

Ok here it is.

Cant I just drag & drop my entire C: drive to the 500g drive? Wouldnt that be easiest?

No, C will need to be cloned or imaged onto DISK1. What is the make of both HD's involved as they may have quality cloning freeware available to use. Look at the HD's or in Device Manager under Disk Drives to google serial to find out.

I would wipe DISK1 500gb using this method: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation If you get started on that now, we can find the best cloning or imaging app to use for transferring Win7 when it's done.

gregrocker said:

No, C will need to be cloned or imaged onto DISK1. What is the make of both HD's involved as they may have quality cloning freeware available to use. Look at the HD's or in Device Manager under Disk Drives to google serial to find out.

I would wipe DISK1 500gb using this method: SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation If you get started on that now, we can find the best cloning or imaging app to use for transferring Win7 when it's done.

They are both Seagates (I got a WD this last time around... guess I should have kept them seagates, but the WD was a deal at $99.99

I'll try that read through now & see what I can do.

gregrocker said:

Free Acronis Download link: | Seagate

Seagate offers free Acronis cloning which is one of the best.

I'm taking a look at it now to see what it offers in the free version. Have a look yourself.

Ok cool I'll have a look here shortly.

There isnt any easier way to wipe this disk without going through BIOS/restart?

Why isnt it just letting me format it through disk managment? It doesnt have any part of the OS on it...