Hey guys,
I've been using Windows 7 pro 64bit for a while. My issue is that I want to put in a new hard drive and install windows 7 on that without loosing or moving all my data onto my new hard drive. Can someone tell me what is the most painless way to go abouts doing this?
Thanks!
You want to duplicate everything on your current disk on to a new disk, including data?
And you don't want to reinstall?
If so, you could do a "clone" using imaging software such as Acronis. You can download a 30 day trial version for no cost.
The clone would move everything from drive A to drive B, without making an intervening image.
If you want to transfer settings, data, pics, music, files, docs, etc,
Windows Easy Transfer
Windows Easy Transfer - Transfer To & From Computers
" Doc "
You would only use Windows Easy Transfer if you were reinstalling Windows 7 and doing a clean install.
Since it sounds like you just want to copy your existing installation to a new hard drive without going through the hassle of reinstalling windows and reinstalling all your programs and transferring all your data (possibly using WET), the best and easiest way to accomplish that is to clone your disk over to the new drive, as was mentioned in the first response. Cloning makes an exact copy of everything and if you swap in a clone of your current drive it should boot up just fine and windows won't know the difference and should still be activated with all your apps and data intact on the new drive.
"Acronis True Image Home 2010" backup software has a cloning utility that makes this pretty easy. The "Clone Disk" utility is found under the "Tools and Utilities" menu in that program.
Macrium Reflex and Acronis (mentioned in prior post) are two highly rated products for making copies of a hard drive. Take your time evaluate both and make your choice. An image copy is definately the easiest way to proceed.
I use Windows 7 Backup imaging to create an image stored externally or on a primary formatted partition.
Then plug in the second HDD and reimage to it. Works perfectly.
I really was hoping to be able to use Windows 7 backup but it failed to restore for me when I tried to use it. For some reason it simply would not see the image I had created with it (which was on an external USB hard drive) although it was listed.
So for anyone considering using it, I would highly recommend testing it to make absolutely sure you can restore from an image created with it before relying on it.
I used Norton Ghost (I believe ver. 11.2) to create an image of my Win7 system before upgading the hard drive. After I brought the image down to the new drive, windows Recovery Mode never worked. That said, I'll be using the Windows 7 backup imaging to create images of my Win7 systems from here on out.
I am an Acronis TI fan (currently at TI 2009), though I've not used it to image any Win7 systems.
Once I've created an image and reimaged my new hard drive to be an exact copy, does that mean I can delete the stuff off my old hard drive and use it for additional storage? Would I need to change some BIOS settings and what-not?
I think I may go the Acronis True Image route.
I believe you have to use the Norton Ghost disk to reimage. Just be sure to set the new Win7 HDD to boot first in the BIOS.
I'd unplug the old HDD while running these operations and plug it back in later to delete and reformat logical if u want it for a data drive.
Images almost always carry the MBR over but if not just boot into the Win7 installer REpair console (or REpair disk) and run Startup Repair 3 times to fix and/or rewrite the MBR.
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