Will resizing my old HDD stop it from booting

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brettstix

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I have upgraded my PC from Windows XP on an intel Q6600 to WIndows 7 on an AMD 1090t processor. I have my new Hard drive (C) with windows 7 and my old hard drive (D) has Windows XP with all of my files.

I would like to image the old drive and store it as a "just in case" measure. The old drive has a 500GB capacity with only about 150GB used. When I image the drive the image file is ~500GB.

My questions are:

1. If I resize the old hard drive using "Windows 7 Disk Management" will I still be able to put that drive in my old computer and have it boot up?

2. Will the image file be only the size of the new partition?

Thanks.
 

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Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk Management drive map with listings showing all columns. Use the Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

If you installed Win7 to the new HD with the old HD plugged in, chances are it only updated the System Active boot files on the XP partition. To remove XP HD now, you'll need to mark Win7 partition Active, boot the Win7 DVD Repair console to Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 starts on its own. Then you can set Win7 HD first to boot, if you need to boot XP again use the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key given on first boot screen.

Yes, you can shrink XP partition in Disk Mgmt to make it smaller for imaging purposes and it should start if needed. Partition or Volume - Shrink
Macrium - Image your system
 
hi brettstix, did you upgrade from WinXP to Win7 on the same system or are you saying that you have a completely new computer with Windows 7 on it (and want to back up your old Windows XP drive by connecting it to the new system as an external drive)?
If this is the case, then yes, resizing the partition should be safe and leave the XP drive bootable in your old system, as long as you do not try to move the partition (more precisely, change its beginning offset).
As for why your partition image ended up being 500GB, it would seem that you made a full sector-by-sector clone of the partition rather than only backing up sectors used by the filesystem. Which software did you use for imaging?
 

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Corazon said:
hi brettstix, did you upgrade from WinXP to Win7 on the same system or are you saying that you have a completely new computer with Windows 7 on it (and want to back up your old Windows XP drive by connecting it to the new system as an external drive)?
If this is the case, then yes, resizing the partition should be safe and leave the XP drive bootable in your old system, as long as you do not try to move the partition (more precisely, change its beginning offset).
As for why your partition image ended up being 500GB, it would seem that you made a full sector-by-sector clone of the partition rather than only backing up sectors used by the filesystem. Which software did you use for imaging?
Click to expand...

I have a new computer. I loaded Windows 7 and it is working well and I am in the process of transferring all of my documents, settings and programs to the new computer.

I used WinImage to image the old drive as a .vhd image. My plan is to have the old hard drive (as a Virtual PC) stored on my external e-sata drive. That way if I ever need to get something from the "old computer" I can access it from within Windows 7.

I was following this guide. http://www.kirbtech.com/blog/2008/10/09/how-to-convert-a-physical-hard-drive-to-a-virtual-machine/

Is there a better program to use?
 
Last edited:

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Win 7 64 bit Home PremiumAMD 1090tG.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800...ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
OS
Win 7 64 bit Home Premium
CPU
AMD 1090t
Motherboard
GB-990FXA-D3
Memory
G.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
Graphics Card(s)
ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
2 x Benq G2420HD 24" LCD
Hard Drives
1 x SATA II Patriot Inferno SSD
1 x SATA II 500GB HDD
PSU
650W
Case
It's black
Cooling
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brett,

Better is a relative term.

If you can create a vhd of the drive and then successfully mount the vhd to extract any desired info, then all is ok.

If you are interested, then DISK2VHD from the SysInternals folk is my choice. The program does have a 128 GB limit.

Let me get the url for you:
Disk2vhd

Also, just to help guide you, Greg Rocker is a MVP and the recognized expert on this forum in this general topic area.
 

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Also have an Asus ha1002xp netbook with Win 7 Ultimate installed.
karlsnooks said:
brett,
Also, just to help guide you, Greg Rocker is a MVP and the recognized expert on this forum in this general topic area.
Click to expand...

Nothing against Greg but the other post was closer to my scenario. I understood what Greg was saying but he had misinterpreted what I had written.

It is working at the moment. I have changed things a little and am using VirtualBox and going to make a new image as a VDI and then strip out the blank space (not sure if that is the correct term but it works for me).

Thanks all, but I think I've nutted it out.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Win 7 64 bit Home PremiumAMD 1090tG.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800...ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
OS
Win 7 64 bit Home Premium
CPU
AMD 1090t
Motherboard
GB-990FXA-D3
Memory
G.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
Graphics Card(s)
ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
2 x Benq G2420HD 24" LCD
Hard Drives
1 x SATA II Patriot Inferno SSD
1 x SATA II 500GB HDD
PSU
650W
Case
It's black
Cooling
Stock
gregrocker said:
Yes, you can shrink XP partition in Disk Mgmt to make it smaller for imaging purposes and it should start if needed.
Click to expand...
I attached the VHD file in Windows 7 Disk Management and resized it. I then used VHD Resizer to shrink the file. Thanks for your pointers. I should have read this more carefully the first time.
 

My Computer My Computer

At a glance

Win 7 64 bit Home PremiumAMD 1090tG.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800...ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
OS
Win 7 64 bit Home Premium
CPU
AMD 1090t
Motherboard
GB-990FXA-D3
Memory
G.Skill RipjawX 8GB(2x4GB) DDR3 1600 F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
Graphics Card(s)
ASUS EN9400GT/HTP/512M
Sound Card
Onboard
Monitor(s) Displays
2 x Benq G2420HD 24" LCD
Hard Drives
1 x SATA II Patriot Inferno SSD
1 x SATA II 500GB HDD
PSU
650W
Case
It's black
Cooling
Stock
I said only that you can shrink XP for imaging purposes and it should start, not shrink it once it is already a VHD by attaching it in Disk Mgmt for which you are on you own with no guarantees possible here.
 
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