Skip to main content

Copy Disk

Thread needs solution

Before I get myself in trouble, I need an answer.  My current system drive has two partitions.  I need a larger drive and more space.  I have the larger drive and would like to split it into two drives.  Can I do a direct copy of the C drive on one partition, then do a direct copy of the D drive to the second partition.  This would be on my XP PRO system.

Will all files, including hidden files, be copied?

0 Users found this helpful

Lynn, when you speak of doing a direct copy, what do you mean by this?  If you mean using Copy & Paste from within such as Windows Explorer, then this will not work due to all the System files & programs with locks etc.

What you can and should be able to do is to make a full disk backup image of your current smaller HDD (to an external backup drive) and restore that backup to your new larger HDD.  This can include allowing ATIH to automatically resize the partitions to fit / fill the larger disk size.

For this type of operation, you could do the backup and restore all from within the Windows ATIH application if the target HDD is connected via a USB dock or similar, provided you do not attempt to boot with both drives connected after the restore has been done.

The steps would be to make the full disk backup, then restore this to the new HDD from the external backup drive.

Next, shutdown, disconnect all external drives, replace the internal HDD with the new restored larger HDD, then confirm that you can boot successfully into Windows XP.

If all has gone well then you should be done, otherwise, you could use any partition manager software such as the free MiniTool Partition Wizard to make any adjustments to the partition sizes on the new drive, including moving the second partition if needed.

In reply to by truwrikodrorow…

Steve, I know the copy and paste or drag and drop won't work.  My situation now: I have a 500 gig hard drive broken down into two partitions - system drive is 150 gigs, D drive is the rest.  System drive needs much more space.  I would like to take my new 1TB, partition it into 2 500's, then copy my current C & D drives to the new one.  I didn't set it up that way as I never use partitioned drives.

I am confused between the copy, backup, restore, clone.  Years ago when I first used Acronis, one or two clicks and the job was done.

I did clone the hd on this (my win 10) system, but only after three failed attempts did I read here about the many things to do BEFORE attemtping to clone. I did get it done.

 

Lynn, as mentioned before, you should be able to do this migration to a new larger HDD but the easiest method would be to just do a full backup of the current 500GB drive and then restore that backup to the new 1TB drive.  

If you end up with the same size partitions on the 1TB drive (as you had on the 500GB) then download and use the free MiniTool Partition Wizard to move and resize the partitions.

Note: the MiniTool Partition Wizard program can also merge your existing partitions into a single large partition if needed. See the Merge Partition tutorial on their website.  

I would strongly recommend having a full disk backup before using the above tool to merge, move or resize partitions so that you have a means of recovery if anything goes wrong or any mistakes are made.

You wrote: " I didn't set it up that way as I never use partitioned drives."

If I understand you, you don't want partitions on the new drive. You want to "copy" the C and D partitions from your current drive to a single partition on the new drive. Some answers:

You cannot do that in a single operation, but you can do it.

As Steve said, you cannot "copy" the drive contents to the new drive.

You can and should make a full disk backup using ATI. Note that the ATI function is "backup". Do not use "clone". You should also create the ATI bootable Rescue Media. You can then boot from the ATI bootable Rescue Media to restore the full disk backup to the new drive. Once that is done, you may use a tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard (a great, free tool) to transform the new two-partition drive into a single partition if you prefer.

You say your system is XP PRO. I know you didn't ask about that, but, have you considered upgrading to at least Windows 7? It would be more secure and more stable.