Simply trying to clone a Win7 disk - Need help

[mediaman09]

Those are great and detailed instructions.... wish I had joined this group before my first, second, third and fourth attempts and installing Win 7 !!

But now that it'sis finally working, what woud I really gain over in going for Round 5 over what I now have? Seem like a lot of work just to make my backup drive un-active. And if it is only to flip Disk 0 and Disk 1 areound, I can do that with the SATA cables.

All great info for the next 'failure', but for now, I am too exhausted to do anything other than leave good enough alone and start enjoying it! Hope this makes some sense!

Great forum!

 

[mjf]

Mediaman09,
absolutely NO negatives intended. I agree you rolled your sleeves up and got yourself out of a mess. Please take comments as constructive suggestions.
With the D: partition just go into Disk Management and set it as inactive.
If by some slim chance your system doesn't boot it means that D: was being used as part of the booting process and can be fixed.

 

[mediaman09]

Mediaman09,
With the D: partition just go into Disk Management and set it as inactive.
If by some slim chance your system doesn't boot it means that D: was being used as part of the booting process and can be fixed.

Interesting...

okay, as I currently am able to boot to the C drive with the D drive off altogheter (tuned off in bios), then I should not have the slim chance issue described above regardless of what I do to the D drive.

As to making a drive inactive...

I have been in Disk Management a few times, but I dont recall seeing that option to make one an active D Drive partition iin inactive.

If I find a way to make it inactive (perhaps my making another partiion active and deleting it) , does the drive content on newly decativated drive still stay in tact - all data accessible - and the only effect is that its no longer bootable??...or does it get wiped??

I gather you are saying that while one can argue its a disadvantage for a backup drive to be non-bootable during a rare main drive failure, there is payback in spades on a daily basis, when things are not in fail mode, in having the backup drive inactive and used only for data storage. Have I got that right?

 

[mediaman09]

mjf, just so we are clear, per pic, I have only one active partition on each hard drive. One on Disk 0 ; one on Disk 1.

I gather you are suggesting, even that is one too many?? - correct?

 

[Wishmaster]

You should only have 1 active partiton.

 

[mjf]

See your screenshot with Disk 0, partition D: marked active.

Since D: is a backup/data partition it's best to make it inactive.
Why: Because if you run a system repair down the track Windows may decide to dump boot files here.

You would have more than one disk active if you were BIOS multi booting.

At some stage you may want to resize D: to utilize the 10GB unallocated next to it.

 

[mediaman09]

Mediaman09,
With the D: partition just go into Disk Management and set it as inactive.

In Disk Management, I could not find any option that let me do this (make inactive) either off the menus, or via right-clicking.

It seems the other way to do this is via the command prompt using :

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0 ( or 1)
list partition
select partition 1 ( or ....)
inactive

 

[mediaman09]

And anoother option is to:
- use make a small partition on the drive
- make it actiive
- delete it

 

[mediaman09]

I hereby yield to the WindowsSevenForum gurus.

May the force be with me.

I used the latter approach and my D drive primary partition no longer actiive.

All my files are still there...but I have yet to reboot.

Attached is what I currently have showing in Disk Management.

Hope to be back soon to report success on booting up..

 

[mediaman09]

The leap of faith worked, oh wise ones.

 

[mjf]

Yes easy enough with diskpart but some people don't doing things via command prompt.
I almost always use (free) Partition Wizard (v7) over Disk Manager. A good one to fix up your unallocated. It definitely allows you to easily flip a partition from active to non actve & V a V. Link in free programs section.

 

[Wishmaster]

The clone idea work out out well if for example, you clone the drive and remove it from the PC.
Later down the line if something happens, you have a seperate HD thats ready to go, just as it was the day it was made.



But personally, I think your better off just making images.
They can not only be used to restore the current drive, but to a new drive entirely.
To me, its just easier.
Just make sure you have your recovery CD for whichever imagaing program you choose


Glad you got everything sorted out.