I want clone my current drive to a new larger one.

I'm running Windows Media Center XP, And I'm wondering will it work? And What's the success rate on this kind of thing? And what step should I take to make sure everything goes smooth?

 

I have a personal preference that may work for you. Here's how I'd do it.

First, prepare for making an image of the current boot drive by error checking it thoroughly, running DiskCleanup and defragging the drive.

Second, test the Acronis TrueImage Recovery CD. Can you see all your drives including any external hard drives? If so, you are ready to proceed.

Here are the steps for the actual replacement.

1. Make a backup image of your entire current boot drive (all partitions) to an external hard drive or a second internal hard drive.

2. Remove the current boot drive.

3. Install the new larger drive jumpered the same way as the current boot drive.

4. Boot from the Acronis TrueImage Recovery CD (you can make this in TrueImage if you haven't already).

5. Restore the image (all partitions) from the hard drive where you saved it to the new larger drive.

This is the safest way to go since you can restore the image again if there is a problem.

 

Hello Hajpoj,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Yes, you can use the scheme described by jmk94903. You can also use "Clone Disk" tool of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home in order to transfer the system to the larger hard drive. Additional information can be found in Chapter 12. "Transferring the system to a new disk" in the Acronis True Image 9.0 Home User Guide. Please note that we recommend you to unplug one of the hard drives right after the disk cloning process has been finished, since keeping both original and cloned hard drives connected might cause different boot or drive letter assignment problems.

You may also find this post helpful.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

if he does this going to a larger hard drive, isn't he going to be left with some un-allocated space on the new larger drive?

 

He can expand the C partition when he restores it to use as much of the new drive as he wants.