Disk Clone to smaller disk

Can anyone help?

I bought a new 250GB hard drive but it is too large for my motherboard chipset to handle (don't ask) properly and operates v slowly. I have therefore bought another one that is 80GB.

I thought I would try and use Disk Clone to copy the data on the 250GB HD (~65GB of data) to the new HD (80GB capacity).

Will this work or will it try and copy the whole 250GB?

Ta

 

Are you talking about pure data or do you already have the OS on the 250 and want to put that on the 80gig? In any case it is possible to clone to a smaller disk as long as there is adequate room to hold everything.

 

Hairyblob,

see "Why won't 5GB of data clone to a 10GB partition?"

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#15

It would be difficult in your situation. You would need to move your "data" ie not your OS or programs to another HD to get the C: drive used space as low as possible. Defrag to shift everything to the left and then try a clone. If it works you can shift your data back.

 

Hairyblob,

Two possible solutions both of which I have used in the past.

Purchase and fit a PCI IDE controller/adapter card. I used one called a Promise Ultra. It comes with its own bios which enables larger size drives.

Make an image to another drive or elsewhere where you have space and restore the image to the smaller drive. The downsizing ran automatically. I think I was on Version 8 at the time tho' later versions should not give a problem.

 

Gents & Xpilot

Many thanks for your feedback, apologies for the delay in responding.

Ralphie
I am running everything off the 250GB drive at the mo and this includes XP. Does Acronis cloning tool check the amount of disk space the the beginning of the clone or will it until it has runs out of space (it will take a long time as the I/O is very slow)?

Brian K
There is only 65GB of data (inc op sys) on the 250GB drive so it should fit on the 80GB drive depending on how the Acronis clone tool copies data. As you say I may need to defrag and ensure the disk is using contiguous memory at the beginning of the memory map. Just a bit worried that Acronis tool will just copy byte for byte across the whole of the 250GB regardless of if there is any data stored.

Xpilot
Not sure I follow option 2. Can't see how making another image to another place will help.

Thanks one and all

 

No, it should only copy data in use. But sectors from the first to the last piece of data. However I'd be really surprised if your 65 GB of data isn't spread over much more than 80 GB.

 

HairyBlob:

I think Xpilot is refering to the procedure of making a backup image instead of trying to clone the drive. Just make an image backup of the drive and then restore the image to the new smaller drive. I've used this procedure exclusively for replacing hard drives. It just seems less problematic to me.

As long as TI can recognize the partition format (which, in most cases, it can) it will not copy unused space.

Have you checked if there are any BIOS updates available for your computer? I have an old Dell 8100 that I still use every day. It originally couldn't support larger hard drives, but a BIOS update fixed that. Check into it if you haven't as that's the easiest way to go.

I know you said "don't ask", but I'm curious about the computer specs. I still have a 386sx system up and running specialized tasks. And my Pentium-II 450 still gets used from time to time.