Moving windows 7 to another disk

[gallicbear]

Hi there. Hope this is the right category. Right now I've got a dual boot with xp and windows 7 on an IDE disk. I want to clone my windows 7 installation to a brand new, empty (Sata) disk. If I restart the system after the cloning, will the SATA disk have a boot record? What boot options will I have? 2 former ones and a messed up 3rd one?
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[gregrocker]

If you have WD or Seagate you can use their premium Acronis cloning/imaging program to directly clone over Win7 to the new HD. Look for the download and Manual on the Support Downloads webpage for the HD model.

Other options are to use Macrium Reflect or Paragon 11 imaging freeware to image the Win7 partition over to the new HD. If it fails to start, boot the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots, after marking Win7 partition active: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

Once you clone or image over Win7 set the preferred OS HD as first to boot in BIOS Setup, boot the other OS HD using the one-time BIOS Boot Menu key given on first boot-screen.

Next boot into XP, confirm in Disk Managment XP is System Active drive, then you can delete Win7 partition and delete the Win7 listing on XP msconfig>Boot tab. If this fails, install EasyBCD 2.02 to Delete XP on Edit Boot Menu tab.

 

[gallicbear]

Thanks, gregrocker, for the advice. It makes sense, and I'll report back when I am done.