Move Windows 7

[CTerrian]

I installed Win 7 on a 20 GB partition of a 1 TB drive. (my mistake as I've run out of room)
I've searched and have not found any programs that will move the partition.
If I bought another drive, is there a program (preferably free) to image Windows 7 to a new partation?
My version of Norton Ghost won't recognize SATA drives.

 

[TGSoldier]

Acronis.. But you're going to have to head to the torrents for that

 

[Snufffed]

I use Acronis Image v.12 and Acronis Disk Suite to do all that.
1. install Image and make a complete FULLBackup. store on a clean partition.
2. Make the Startup Disk with which you can boot to and restore you FULL Image.
3. Install Acronis Disk Suite. and you can move increase the space or shrink the space as you see with.
I first installed Win7 on a 16GB partition. Later i used Disk Suite to increase the partition size to 50GB. It did move transfer all data and I never lost any data.

The image and boot disk is simply incase you mess up and lose data.

versions I use:
Acronis True Image Home 2009 12.0.0.9796
Acronis CoreDiskDirectorSuite.10.2160

 

[trv]

Can't you use windows backup, its built in. Though you will need a drive the same or larger in capacity to do a restore.

All so you can increase your partition size in disk management if you have spare unallocated adjacent space.

 

[Snufffed]

Acronis does make very small full image backups... imho much easier, faster and smaller than Win7 backup.
currently my C:\win7 partition is almost 20g. Full backup via Acronis is 8.1GB

 

[CTerrian]

Can't you use windows backup, its built in. Though you will need a drive the same or larger in capacity to do a restore.

All so you can increase your partition size in disk management if you have spare unallocated adjacent space.

Disk Management will not allow me to resize the "C:" drive.

I can shrink the "D:" drive, and have say 50 GB of unallotcated space. Then try to extend the "C:" drive and it refuses.

 

[harmann]

Have a look at GParted. It's free. Burn the LiveCD iso to a disc, boot from it and work with your partitions.

GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - COPYING

 

[DJG]

You can also check out Paragon Software's Partition Manager and Drive Backup apps.

PARAGON Software Group - partition manager, drive backup, hard disk partitioning

 

[steve17]

Well, if you know how to clone XP, you can clone Win7. This assumes you are running XP or some other OS while you copy the Win7 partition. Most copy programs can't copy a Win7 partition because of the hard links. XP's backup program (ntbackup) can do it. You make a backup and then restore it to the new partition. The OS doing the restore must know the new partition by the same drive letter as the OS doing the backup knew the original partition, or it won't work because the hard links won't be restored.

As always, you still need to tinker with the registry hive before running the clone. I use the "saving partitions" program to do the tinkering. This is not for beginners.

 

[Dwarf]

Disk Management will not allow me to resize the "C:" drive.

I can shrink the "D:" drive, and have say 50 GB of unallotcated space. Then try to extend the "C:" drive and it refuses.

Can you post an image showing your drive layout in Disk Management? The following is from my system, just to give you an idea of the information required.

 

[CTerrian]

Can you post an image showing your drive layout in Disk Management? The following is from my system, just to give you an idea of the information required.

Sure thing! As you can see, I just took 22.56 GB of unallocated from the "D:" drive. And I just burned G-Parted Live to the CD-Rom. Diskmgmt refuses to expand the available space to the "C:" drive.

 

[Dwarf]

The reason why you cannot expand C into the Unallocated space is because it is not contiguous. You can only expand a partition into unallocated space that lies to its immediate right. Other tools might be able to do this, but the only tool that I have experience of is the built-in one, which does not permit this. Sorry.

 

[Snufffed]

Recommend you get install and use Acronic Disk Director. This will allow you to expand the BOOT Drive. It will lock the data, boot to DOS, complete the job, then allow you to have a larger C: partition.
Windows diskmanagement software suks.
I use Acronis Disk Director , have had NO PROBLEMS. Highly Recommend

 

[petrossa]

uuuuhhh, lost a lot of data once that way. It's a bit like anticonception, it works 95% of the time but you are in sh*tcreek if you're in the 5%.

be sure to have a total backup.

 

[Dwarf]

You could always try this EASEUS Partition Master is a magic partition manager software for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/2003/2008 Server. Free for home users. Note that the free version (Home Edition) supports 32-bit only, for 64-bit support you will need to buy the Professional Edition. Note that it does not specifically mention W7, however there is no reason why it won't work. Also please note that you use tools like this AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

[Snufffed]

Recommend you get install and use Acronic Disk Director. This will allow you to expand the BOOT Drive. It will lock the data, boot to DOS, complete the job, then allow you to have a larger C: partition.
Windows diskmanagement software suks.
I use Acronis Disk Director , have had NO PROBLEMS. Highly Recommend

As I have mentioned earlier, I have been testing Acronis all during the Win7 Beta and prior to. I have never had any loss. Not that It can not happen, but AS OF TODAY. I hae had NO LOSS of data either on increasing or decreasing, moving, or what ever term you want to USE.
Yes, I also want it know. when doing this; I DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO OTHER STUFF. I have also used Acronis True Image v 12. formated current drive, reinstalled back to Vista SP2, upgraded to Win 7 Ultimate RTM. Formatted and restored the last Win7 Clean install,
Yes, I do have current Full Images of:
1. Vista SP2 -18005.
2. Vista SP2-upgraded to Win7 RTM
3. Clean install Win7 RTM
I do recommend if you are NOOBIE with any program. Do a Full complete BACKUP of your current system.
Read all the instructions, print out the instructions, due to WOOPs I forgot what the hell it said.
Waste a little time on instruction, and printing, and almost certainly you will have 100% satisfaction on Increasing your Boot Patition size and the NO % lose of data.

 

[RustyFalcon]

Snuffy this is good to know. I have a license of Disk Directory but did not install it on Win 7 x64 since the Acronis website does not say it's compatible.

Sounds like you had good luck with it. Do you run Disk Director on 64-bit ?

Recommend you get install and use Acronic Disk Director. This will allow you to expand the BOOT Drive. It will lock the data, boot to DOS, complete the job, then allow you to have a larger C: partition.
Windows diskmanagement software suks.
I use Acronis Disk Director , have had NO PROBLEMS. Highly Recommend