I've got two physical hard drives in my system, and I'm long overdue an upgrade.

1st hard drive is 250GB partitioned into:
C: 50GB General use Windows 7 install and software.
D: 150GB 'Documents' drive where general stuff is kept.
F: 50GB Audio-only Windows 7 install and software.

2nd hard drive is 750GB with one partition:
H: 750GB audio assets - sample libraries, sfx, vst instruments, projects etc.

(drive letters are a bit messy but necessary for older projects when I had more partitions!)

I plan to get something like a new 2TB drive, replace the 750GB audio drive with it and replace the 250GB drive with the 750GB drive, basically pushing them back one so to speak.

Copying the contents of the audio drive will be easy enough, but can I transfer the contents of the C, D and F partitions into new larger partitions on a freshly formatted 750GB drive somehow without breaking the windows installs and having to re-authorise or potentially have to reinstall everything from scratch?

Thanks!

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http://www.jeremycorbett.co.uk

You can try it, I can't promise it'll work without a hitch, but your not going to lose anything (except half an hour of your time) by giving it a go.

Clone the old drive to the new one. Some cloning tools (not all) will let you resize on the fly whilst you copy but all the one's I'm thinking of at this point don't exist anymore.... it's not to say the current batch of tools won't allow it, it's just I haven't done it in a few years.

But yeah, failing that you could clone the old drive to the new drive, grab a copy of "partition magic" and resize all the patitions as you want them after you've finished the copy job.

The windows partition manager may allow you some sucess here but I seem to recall it gets a bit arsey if your trying to extend a partition with no physical space directly beyond it (i.e. the third partition would extend fine, but your boot partition at the front might refuse to do anything) and I do know that at least Partition Magic will lock the sections and carry out all the changes outside of windows, so the boot manager will behave itself and it should all be fairly stright forward.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Jez (mahoobley):

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I've got two physical hard drives in my system, and I'm long overdue an upgrade.

1st hard drive is 250GB partitioned into:
C: 50GB General use Windows 7 install and software.
D: 150GB 'Documents' drive where general stuff is kept.
F: 50GB Audio-only Windows 7 install and software.

2nd hard drive is 750GB with one partition:
H: 750GB audio assets - sample libraries, sfx, vst instruments, projects etc.

(drive letters are a bit messy but necessary for older projects when I had more partitions!)

I plan to get something like a new 2TB drive, replace the 750GB audio drive with it and replace the 250GB drive with the 750GB drive, basically pushing them back one so to speak.

Copying the contents of the audio drive will be easy enough, but can I transfer the contents of the C, D and F partitions into new larger partitions on a freshly formatted 750GB drive somehow without breaking the windows installs and having to re-authorise or potentially have to reinstall everything from scratch?

Thanks!

---

Unless you actually *need* to do a fresh install of everything (and sometimes this is a good idea, though time-consuming and a PITA) I would recommend you upgrade to a 240GB SSD, and get one of these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/386425-ocz-ssd-upgrade-kit-oczssdupgdk...

I can personally vouch for this method. The included software will transfer the whole of your existing hard disk, partitions, boot loaders and all, to the SSD (or you can be more selective). The SSD will give your PC a new lease of life.

You can then re-use your existing 250GB hard drive until you have the funds for a multiterabyte drive. And your PC will run as slick as.

p.s. a SATA 2 SSD will likely be just as good for you as SATA 3, so if you're on a budget you can save a few quid there.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

I got my SSD from amazon, it's a good un, and this is a great price, less than £100 for 240gb. Alternatively you could pay about £30 more for the SATA3 version, but you'd not notice any difference unless your motherboard is SATA3.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B005J4C3WK/ref=sr_1...

Upgrade kit here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00829J01Q/ref=oh_details...

Once you've gone SSD you will never look back. It makes a massive difference, even on older PCs.

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

For SSDs I'd either go Intel, Crucial or Samsung. I don't recommend OCZ, constantly hear stories of them playing up and requiring umpteen firmware updates.

Quote Mock Element:

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For SSDs I'd either go Intel, Crucial or Samsung. I don't recommend OCZ, constantly hear stories of them playing up and requiring umpteen firmware updates.

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Weird. I've got 2 of them, one in an old Athlon 64 machine running XP and the other in a newer Intel Q6600 box running Win 7 and OSX - I've had no bother at all - nor have I heard of anything untoward about OCZ - where are you constantly hearing bad things about OCZ SSDs?

I suppose in my enthusiasm I should have pointed out, you'll need to check that any drive you bought would be compatible with your motherboard - but we all know that, right?

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Start of last year was the last major headache for OCZ. When Intel did patch to fix a problem on their SSD's to their own drives it screwed up everyone else for a few weeks, since then they've been fine. Before that last headache however they had problems with some of the controllers they picked in certain models and other compability issues.

TBH up until the last few generations I wasn't overly happy to put my trust in any of them, but as controllers and drivers have been refined it's become a whole lot better. OCZ perhaps takes more stick simply because they are cheep and they have a lot more drives in circulation with the sort of user who is likely to make a fuss publicly.

The Intels and Samsungs carry a premium that tends to make them more likely to end up with larger organizations and those guys don't complain in public, they get on the phone to their rep and and scream until it's resolved.

The OCZ's have a less than 3% run rate across all their models which for the price is hard to argue with. The Intels, Samsungs & Crucials come in at around half that but then they are either slower (which I suppose helps make them more reliable) and more importantly they tend to be very fussy with their components which is why your paying the premium. Samsung uses all it's own chips and controllers for instance rather than picking them out of the component pool everyone else uses so that promotes a nice stable enviroment for the machine to work with.

So yeah, I would also say you want to be looking at Samsung or Intel but then I wouldn't complain about having to use any other brand if the price was right.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

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Start of last year was the last major headache for OCZ. When Intel did patch to fix a problem on their SSD's to their own drives it screwed up everyone else for a few weeks, since then they've been fine. Before that last headache however they had problems with some of the controllers they picked in certain models and other compability issues.

TBH up until the last few generations I wasn't overly happy to put my trust in any of them, but as controllers and drivers have been refined it's become a whole lot better. OCZ perhaps takes more stick simply because they are cheep and they have a lot more drives in circulation with the sort of user who is likely to make a fuss publicly.

The Intels and Samsungs carry a premium that tends to make them more likely to end up with larger organizations and those guys don't complain in public, they get on the phone to their rep and and scream until it's resolved.

The OCZ's have a less than 3% run rate across all their models which for the price is hard to argue with. The Intels, Samsungs & Crucials come in at around half that but then they are either slower (which I suppose helps make them more reliable) and more importantly they tend to be very fussy with their components which is why your paying the premium. Samsung uses all it's own chips and controllers for instance rather than picking them out of the component pool everyone else uses so that promotes a nice stable enviroment for the machine to work with.

So yeah, I would also say you want to be looking at Samsung or Intel but then I wouldn't complain about having to use any other brand if the price was right.

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Interesting stuff Pete. The cheapest Samsung 240GB SSD is £131 on Amazon, rather than £95 for the OCZ. But I the Samsung is described as using cheaper TLC NAND memory... So does this mean they are cutting similar corners to OCZ?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Series-250GB-Solid-State/dp/B009LI7C9Y/ref=sr_1_4?s=comp uters&ie=UTF8&qid=1358432763&sr=1-4

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

Not at all, I wouldn't get overly wrapped up with the memory as long as they are decent quality dimms which being Samsung own brand I'm sure they are. It's more the quality of the controller and it's ability to communicate with whatever is on the motherboard and the Samsung ones in these regards are always top notch.

What you will notice is that the budget 840 you linked takes a serious hit on the write speeds which is where the cost cutting has taken place. Not a problem for gamers and the such but maybe a consideration for audio guys, depending upon how you use you setup of course... you'll notice the full fat 840 PRO edition has the increased write speed to put it on level peggin with the OCZ's of this world but at the expense of... well.. expense.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Jez (mahoobley):

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I've got two physical hard drives in my system, and I'm long overdue an upgrade.

1st hard drive is 250GB partitioned into:
C: 50GB General use Windows 7 install and software.
D: 150GB 'Documents' drive where general stuff is kept.
F: 50GB Audio-only Windows 7 install and software.

2nd hard drive is 750GB with one partition:
H: 750GB audio assets - sample libraries, sfx, vst instruments, projects etc.

(drive letters are a bit messy but necessary for older projects when I had more partitions!)

I plan to get something like a new 2TB drive, replace the 750GB audio drive with it and replace the 250GB drive with the 750GB drive, basically pushing them back one so to speak.

Copying the contents of the audio drive will be easy enough, but can I transfer the contents of the C, D and F partitions into new larger partitions on a freshly formatted 750GB drive somehow without breaking the windows installs and having to re-authorise or potentially have to reinstall everything from scratch?

Thanks!

---

I have done this on quite a few occasions. First thing is put aside a few hours and have a notepad on hand, to write down existing drive letters etc

Clone the drives/partitions making sure you make note of the drive/partition letter and name.

Once done I tend to disconnect all drives except the source and target (I once DeBanned a drive by mistake and I would have lost about 4 years of work except for the fact I had backed up data a few weeks before)

Then with run the cloning software to restore the backup image to the new drive/partition.


It is not one of those '5 minute' jobs though, take your time - "nothing's good that's rushed"

Cheers all, you know I am thinking of getting an SSD drive for general faster performance. That and loading times on some PC games is outrageous these days ...

After doing a big job on thursday and friday I have realised I really need to upgrade my system overall. I used to do major upgrades probably once every 18 months or so, but I've been with my Athlon X2 4200 for ... well, I dunno - five years maybe? While it's been fine for my audio purposes - when I got it was 'finally! A CPU that can actually handle everything I throw at it!" it has started to get creaky, and it struggles to play a lot of the video files I get sent these days.

So yes, full upgrade time. May make a new thread for this!

It does appear AMD have totally dropped the ball these days (is that correct?), and as I've been with AMD since my 166mHz K6-2 this may well be my first Intel system!

So what's current cpu/motherboard/ram recommendations?

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http://www.jeremycorbett.co.uk

Jez I use Macrium Reflect for back-up and cloning. I have nothing but good things to say about it. I see on the site that they support partitioning/resizing etc. It may be worth contacting them to check if this will do what you need. I have used it for cloning a drive with the OS onto an SSD and it worked a treat.

http://www.macrium.com/pages/features.aspx

Stewart

Not sure if this has been mentioned....

Windows 7 and Vista include a built-in functionality in Disk Management to shrink and expand partitions.

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Madman_Greg

Just read your OP

Disk one to the new disk is easy

Install new drive, suggest pulling your 2nd disk H: Drive out to avoid mistakes….

Use

http://clonezilla.org/clonezilla-live-doc.php

Boot from CD or USB, use the clone process. Pull the old drive. See if it boots.

If the contents of 2nd hard drive (750GB) have no links back to the applications the main disk, its just a copy across to a new partition:

Then resize afterwards on the new disk

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Madman_Greg

Quote Madman_Greg:

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Not sure if this has been mentioned....

Windows 7 and Vista include a built-in functionality in Disk Management to shrink and expand partitions.

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Yeah, but its a fussy one that won't always let you extend partitions for one reason or another. It's worth a shot by all means, but I still swear by Partition Magic.

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ScanProAudio & 3XS Audio Systems
ScanProAudio Blog

Quote Pete Kaine:

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Quote Madman_Greg:

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Not sure if this has been mentioned....

Windows 7 and Vista include a built-in functionality in Disk Management to shrink and expand partitions.

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Yeah, but its a fussy one that won't always let you extend partitions for one reason or another. It's worth a shot by all means, but I still swear by Partition Magic.

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I must admit to having only used it once to shrink a partition prior to cloning a disk, and only once. Then expanding after cloning. But it did work. I had to do this as the target disk was smaller than the source disk.

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Madman_Greg