Transfering installed system to new hard drive

[CreepinJesus]

Here's the deal: I've bought a new 1.5TB hard drive for my PC to replace the 320GB one in there at the moment (turning it into a HTPC). Problem is, it's one of those mini-tower PCs and it only has the one hard drive slot. This means it's re-installation time!


So the question is, what do you lot think would be the best way of setting up Windows 7 on this new drive, hopefully keeping as much as possible of my current setup? As far as I can work out, my options are as follows:

1. Use the Windows Backup thing to do a complete PC backup, installing Windows on the new hard drive, then restoring the system from the backup.
2. Use a Linux live CD and use Partimage to create an image of the system partition which I can then put on the new hard drive and hope it boots (obviously once the MBR is sorted, etc).
3. Just install Windows on the new hard drive and set everything up again from scratch.

The hard drive arrives in 2 days, so what do you reckon?

Thanks.

 

[TGSoldier]

It really comes down to preference.. Some people love just imaging hard drives.. Some love the feel of a clean install..

It's really up to you..

 

[CreepinJesus]

I'll probably just image it in that case... there are a lot of things in Media Center (e.g., TV channel listings) that I don't want to go through and configure channel by channel again

I was really just checking if there was an "accepted" way of doing this kind of thing... thanks anywho

 

[Antman]

Time on task. Image and restore.

 

[theog]

Hi CreepinJesus

You could use Windows Easy Transfer.
I have used it on all three builds of win7 works OK.
If you in the Tutorials there is step by step tutorial.