Query re hard drive space

Now I have a little problem my partners laptop is terribly slow and in part because it has a slow 5400rpm spinner.
So to get a bit more speed out of it I got a hybrid Seagate 500GB drive. Now the original drive already mentioned is an unusual 600GB drive.

Now I just want to clone the 600GB drive to the new one using Macrium but it comes up with the message not enough space even though the data would fit easily onto the 500GB drive.

I know this is the usual thing that happens but someone did mention to me that I can probably "trick" the machine into thinking the 600GB is actually smaller by altering the partition sizes however I cannot find what that post with the instructions.

Mind you he did say it might work and not will work.

So any clever people out there - ideas would be most welcome. As an afterthought I do have a new Seagate 750GB 7200rpm spinner as well but obviously if the hybrid is going to be faster I would rather use it.

John post the Disk Management screen.

Colin the new drive is showing up as raw in disk management it is showing in diskpart as the disk with the * by the side and I am trying to just format the thing to make it usable.
I am pretty hopeless at this sort of thing as the convolutions confuse me a bit.

Sorry about the lag too as I am having to email the required pics form her laptop to mine.

What is in the Recovery Partition? Do you need to keep it?

If it was me, I would do the following: (using bootable Partition Wizard and Macrium)

1. Move the boot files to C: using this:

Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

2. Confirm the boot files are in C:, then delete the 1.46GB Recovery Partition and the 10.83GB partition (IF it contains nothing you require)

3. Move the remaining C: partition to the left to utilise the unallocated 1.46GB partition

4. Use Macrium to image that C:

5. Format the new RAW disk

6. Use Macrium to write the image from Step 4 to the newly formatted disk

If you wait a bit, I'll ask Wolfgang if he agrees with these steps.

Ok mate there is no real rush though I would like to get this sorted soon. Attached are snips of the different partitions.

I would vote with Golden. Copy the bootmgr to C, then image C and restore it on the new drive. Since there is less data than the capacity of the new drive, that should work.

Should it not work, you can do the following.

1. Mount the image of C
2. Shrink that mounted image to the size of the new drive - that works like shrinking any partition.
3. Make an image of the shrunk mouted image and restore that. That also works like imaging any partition.

Ok Colin and Wolfgang sorry late reply just got up:)
Now you will have to bear with me as I am not really good at doing this sort of stuff and there are a couple of things I want to ask before I start.

The EasyBCD what version do I use the free or paid for and moving the boot files to C:?
Just what sort of stuff will be contained in that small partition as I can see no reference to data that means anything to me but may be needed?
The 10.83 partition looks to me to be a factory bloatware / recovery set and frankly I am all for dumping that stuff anyway but will it have something to do with the boot manager?

So what you are saying is that I will end up with a one partition drive which will boot and it will be seen as the total size of that drive and can then be cloned.

Just as matter of interest and because I don't want to wreck the thing I might just clone the thing first to the other 750GB drive as a back up if things go pear shaped or I could use that drive to do the above actions. Therefore I shall still be left with the original drive as is.

What do you think about that idea or do you think I would get a bit of corruption creeping in going the "long way" round?

Sorry but she is very fussy with her pics and music and I might end up dismembered or something horribly similar - I think both of you will know what I mean

I use a free version of EasyBCD. But mine is quite old. I have heard that they now charge for the recent versions. But that cannot be the world.

It is not a bad idea to first image everything - just to be safe. But ultimately you only need the C partition (once the bootmgr was copied.).

Ok Wolfgang I looked it up an it is pay for now - not a great deal but what I thought I might do is the colne the drive to the 750GB spinner and then work off of it so if I do wreck the drive it won't be the original one.

A bit of a work around and fiddly but at least I don't risk death by ear bashing LOL!!

If the 750 works out to be faster I could even leave it at that.

EasyBCD 2.2 - Neowin

https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/a...is/1407324565/
https://www.metascan-online.com/en/s...7ec793baeb5bca