About to do attempt restore - advice appreciated

About to do attempt restore - advice appreciated (failed to boot)

Hello again - and thank you for your time,

I'm ready to upgrade my hdd situation and would like very much to be among the glowing success stories - rather than another unfortunate soul whom did not ask the big questions first.
Any tips will be valued.

My info: XP Pro (HP a1100y desktop)
1) 120gb IDE (w/OS, Acronis, some apps, av, etc)
2) 250gb SATA (Mp3's, Vids, QBks (business records), few more apps, pagefile, etc)
3) 250gb WD usb (used for my 90gb Acronis image only)
4) And I just found a shiny new WD Caviar se16 - 500gb SATA still in the wrapper .

My mobo has two IDE channels and two SATA - only one of each is in use.

My goal is to ditch both of the existing drives, putting everything on the Caviar [leaving just my optical drives occupying the IDE] .

Can I power down, disconnect the existing IDE/SATA, connect the new WD SATA, boot from the Acronis disk and restore my 90gb .tib to the new drive?
Or should I first install the new drive on the second SATA channel first?

Please feel free to point out any and all flaws with my plan, and don't worry about hurting my feelings; I fully recognize that I might be way off the mark here but prefer admonishment to prideful regret .

You guys are great,
Thank you

 

Does the 90GB backup image contain the partitions from both of the drives?

I would proceed as you plan. Disconnect the old IDE and SATA drives and install the new SATA drive in the same position as the old one. Then boot to TI and restore the image from your USB drive.

If the backup image contains more than just the IDE partition(s), restore those first so the OS partition is in the same place as the original and then restore any partitions from the old SATA drive.

You might also want to take a look at Grover's hard disk upgrade guide.

 

Yes, the .tib contains, well, everything from both drives.

I have yet to examine the contents of said backup - but it does have both partitions within. I am obviously green here, and will read as much as I can get my hands on, thank you.

I've never even tried booting from the TI disk, and therefore am unfamiliar with it's procedures. It hadn't occurred to me that [of course ] I should give the OS partition precedence over the other - again, thanks. This is exactly why I posted in the 1st place

 

Question,

I will not be able to attempt a restore through Windows [w/both drives out] and therefore not eligible for some of the more advanced options [probably a good thing]...
And I saw - when I booted from rec. disk - that an option to simply 'restore entire image' (or something like that) was doable, but don't want to accidentally bury my OS partition for the sake of simplicity.

But according to the TI disk, restoring both partitions as a singular image is not necessarily a problem - it sure made it look easy (suppose it wouldn't hurt to try, right?) And perhaps more importantly;

Since I'll be replacing both drives @ once, does it seem prudent that I should maybe purchase a second HDD - and restore the partitions [drives] separately?

 

If you want to restore the partitions onto one drive, I'd proceed as follows:

• Removing the existing drives and install the new drive.
• Connect your USB drive.
• Boot to the TI CD.
• Select to Restore, select your OS partition (just check it), resize as needed.
• Proceed through the Wizard. Select to restore another disk or partition.
• Select the other partition (just check it), resize as needed.
• Proceed through the Wizard. Select to restore another disk or partition.
• Select the MBR and Track 0 from your OS Disk (check it) and restore it to the new OS drive.
• Finally, proceed to finish the restore.

By doing it this way, you can test out the restore without any risk to your existing drives.

---

If you want to get another drive, you certainly can. In that case, just restore the OS Disk image to the new OS drive and the other disk image to the new second drive.

 

Thanks MudCrab,
I've decided to treat myself to a smaller faster HDD solely for the OS and critical apps. If it's not too OT, can you (or anyone with an opinion) make a recommendation? Tomorrow I shop, install and restore - then post results .

 

Re: About to do attempt restore - advice appreciated (failed to boot)

Success.
Picked up a Seagate Barracuda yesterday and got to work, was up all night.
Couldn't boot at first for whatever reason, but after the 5th attempt - it just worked.
Fast (benchmarking well), quiet, and clean.

Just in time too; my old SATA sounded like a rock polisher and wouldn't even defrag by this time yesterday.

Thank you for (all of) your tips,
Feck