Solved Cloning a hard drive partition onto a smaller hard drive

[TheDeerDude]

I have an old 320GB hard drive that's dying and slowing my computer down. The OS is on a 20GB partition. I want to copy that partition onto an empty, 110GB hard drive.

Will the data copied be corrupted? am I better off re-installing windows?

How can I do this?

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there

1) download something like FREE macrium and boot it up.
2) Image the OS
3) Restore the image to the new HDD --if it's a Laptop you can do it with a USB==>SATA cable without installing the new HDD first
4) swap the drives if it's a laptop
5) Boot.

Remember though if the Windows system partition exists to copy that as well as the "C" partition.

The rest of your data (User data etc) on the HDD - just save anywhere with File explorer / Windows explorer to wherever you want to keep it -- there's no reason why you couldn't keep it on the old HDD -- if it's an INTERNAL HDD you can get a powered SATA / IDE case and connect via USB or SATA.

I suspect you are installing an SSD -- EXCELLENT MOVE -- you won't be in any way disappointed. You can connect the 110GB SDD to the computer via a USB==>SATA cable - very cheap so you can restore to SSD BEFORE physically changing the drives. Even if it isn't an SSD the methodology applies -- ensure though the BOOT partition is ACTIVE !! or the system won't boot.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[TheDeerDude]

Hello,

Thank you very much for those clear, step-by-step instructions. I will try that when I'll have time and get back to report whether I was successful or not.

Also, I love your profile picture, it's simply amazing.

 

[jimbo45]

Hello,

Thank you very much for those clear, step-by-step instructions. I will try that when I'll have time and get back to report whether I was successful or not.

Also, I love your profile picture, it's simply amazing.

Hi there

did you ever see "The Six Million Dollar Man "on TV -- old series but sometimes still re-run on Satellite channels. Now you know where the pic came from !!

The Six Million Dollar Man - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheers
jimbo

 

[TheDeerDude]

No I haven't unfortunately, might check it out if I get the chance to though, thank you. Anyways, I did make a backup image of the partition, restored it to the new hard drive - everything went smoothly and works well now. Thank you very much for your help.