Cloning old HDD to new larger HDD

In my laptop I have 1 HDD (160GB), and am running out of space. I have bought a new much larger HDD, and am going to clone the old one on to the new one. Then replace the HDD.
I have one question: Do I have to format the new HDD before I make the cloning? or can I leave it as I got it from the store?

 

You shouldn't need to ... but if the Cloning process doesn't recognize the new drive, you can use the Add New Drive feature from True Image on the new drive. It is much quicker than a standard Windows format.

 

JohnBe38,
Suggest you place the target in its normal boot position before cloning. Place the source in another drive bay or external or network, etc.

Boot from the TI Rescue CD to perform the clone. If CD drive not available, then create a TI bootable flashdrive which is one of TrueImages boot media builder options.

 

GroverH,
Thank you for your advise. I will try doing it your way, it looks like a pretty easy wayto do it.
And to be sure that I have got it right I’ll repeat it here:
I replace my old HDD with the new, larger and unformatted one. Boot off the ATI Rescue Disk, and connect the old HDD (via special equipment) to an USB Port and then perform the Cloning.
I do hope that ATI can see the new unformatted HDD (at this point placed inside my Laptop). If not what do I then do? Because the equipment, mentioned above, does not handle unformatted HDD's, so I can't do it the other way arround.
I'm using ATI 11.0

 

Use the Add New Drive feature from True Image on the new drive. It is much quicker than a standard Windows format.

 

You are correct except you want the old drive powered up and running before bootup so that TrueImage will see the old and new drive during its boot process. TrueImage should see the new raw drive as unallocated space. After cloning, shutdown and disconnect the old drive. During first bootup following cloning, only the new clone should be attached.

Here is a link to my cloning guide which illustrated V9-10-11.

My guide to Manual Cloning using the TI Rescue CD


Clone or Restore using Resize comparison
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1299861&postcount=9

 

GroverH
Thank you for your advise so far.
I might be a little sorry to continue this line of questions, but as English isn’t my primary language, I need to get it all right, to avoid messing up things.
I have three partitions on my HDD:

1. 30 GB, Win. Vista SP 1 Home premium (system, boot, sidefile, crashdump, primary)
2. 99 GB, All my data (can be deleted, as I have sufficient back up) (primary)
3. 20 GB, Win XP Home SP 3. (primary)

They run in a perfect dual boot. I would now, as I’m going to replace the old HDD with a new much larger one, want to swap the position of partition 2 and 3.
Can I make this back up image, only choosing partition 1 and 3, and leave the rest of the new HDD unallocated? Because I would like to have the two OS’es right after another, to leave me more freedom to use the rest of the HDD.
I can even make partition 2 into unallocated space (before making the back up image) if that makes it easier.
I have decided to use the secure method, as you recommend (partition restore with resizing) in your guide.
I’m doing these operations on my Laptop. An “Acer Asphire 5610Z, Intel dual core 1,73GHZ, 3GB DDR2 Ram.

 

johnbe38,

My instructions do NOT apply to dual boot situations. Do not use! Please wait for assistance from others who will assist.

I believe I remember prior questions of a similar topic. Look for responses by MudCrab and/or K0lo

 

Thank you, I'll wait and hope that some one know the trick.

 

johnbe38,

In your current setup:

When you boot into Vista, what drive letter is assigned to the Vista partition?
What drive letter is assigned to the XP partition?

When you boot into XP, what drive letter is assigned to the XP partition?
What drive letter is assigned to the Vista partition?

I assume you are using Vista's boot manager. If you're using something else, let us know.

Are you using the latest build of TI 11 (8,101)?

Which Windows OS was installed first (XP or Vista)?

 

Thank you MudCrab!
Vista was installed first and got drive letter C on the first partition. Then XP was installed on the 3. partition F. On the second partition I have my data.
After the XP install I had to recover the Vista Boot sektor. Everything went smooth. When booting into Vista the drive letters are as described above, and when booting into XP they are exact the same.
Drive C - Vista
Drive F - XP.
I'm using ATI Home 11.0 (build 8053)

 

Do you have a standard Microsoft OEM or Retail Vista DVD?

I think Vista should restore okay. XP will require a couple Registry edits to fix the drive letters because of the partition switching. The boot.ini file may also need to be modified.

You may want to update to the latest build of TI 11.

I would proceed as follows (using the "Partition Restore with Resize" method):

1. Keep your original drive safe (not connected).
2. Restore the Vista partition to the new drive. Resize as desired. Make the partition Active during the restore.
3. Restore the XP partition. Don't make it Active. It should be just Primary as the original.
4. Restore your Data partition. If this partition is not an image backup and you need to create the partition ahead of time, let us know. Also, if you have files on the Data partition that are required for either OS to boot properly, let us know.

You should be able to boot into Vista. If not, then a repair will be needed. This can be done from the Vista DVD.

Do you have access to another computer so you can do this in parts? Depending on how things go, the procedures can change so it's hard to cover everything ahead of time.

 

Thank you!
My Vista is an OEM, and so is my XP.
Never mind the data partition, it contains ONLY data (pictures, videos, documents and so on). Nothing what so ever, that has anything to do with the OS-Partitions, is on that partition. That's the reason why I suggested that I can delete this partition and make it unallocated space before moving the OS'es. I have sufficient back up, so I can fully recover my data. (I do always use the "drag and drop" in Windows File Manager.
After moving the OS'es I can create a new Data-Partition, using Vistas tool for this purpose.
So the task is only to move the Vista-partition and the XP-partition, and that should be possible the way you describe it, or?

 

I suddenly came up with an idea.
Do you think it is possible to delete the data-partition, make it into unallocated space, then from outside windows, make ONE back up image of both the Vista-partition and the XP-partition, from my old HDD. Then replace the old HDD with the new HDD, boot up from the ATI rescue CD and then recover both partitions in one step, as both partitions are included in the back up image?

 

I feel like sending you a feed back.
I have now moved the Vista-partition and the XP-partition to my larger HDD.
It looked like everything went smooth. Vista booted fine, but XP wouldn’t boot, even Vista’s boot loader showed the opportunity at start up. It stumbled over some Hardware failure, so I had to go the long way and reinstall Win. XP.
Anyway it is running fine now.
I don’t know if you can extract anything usable from my experience, but here it is.
I’ll thank you all for your help.