H@L0_F00 Posted December 29, 2008 Posted December 29, 2008 I just got a new Wester Digital 250 SATA HDD to replace the 40GB in my laptop. I would like to keep EVERYTHING so I want to do a full image of the disk but is there any concerns with trying to install the image onto a bigger HDD and what will installing the image do with the extra space? I dual boot Ubuntu 8.10 Desktop and XP and us GRUB just FYI Quote
deleted Posted December 29, 2008 Posted December 29, 2008 For the XP side, I would recommend Acronis (the trial will do the job) and for the Linux side i recommend dd. Quote
Sparda Posted December 29, 2008 Posted December 29, 2008 For the XP side, I would recommend Acronis (the trial will do the job) and for the Linux side i recommend dd. Acronis should be able to do it all in one... though you will probably want to do it a partition at a time so you can resize them individually. Quote
H@L0_F00 Posted December 29, 2008 Author Posted December 29, 2008 Can't I just image it "bit for bit" kind of and then resize the partitions using QTParted or the like? And would it copy the MBR and everything? Quote
Sparda Posted December 29, 2008 Posted December 29, 2008 Can't I just image it "bit for bit" kind of and then resize the partitions using QTParted or the like? And would it copy the MBR and everything? simple dd if=<drive> of=<new drive> would do that, and yes you could move and resize the partitions and it would copy the boot loader as well, but I would avoid this method. I would avoid it because resizing the first partition(s) would involve 'moving' the last partitions(s). Doing things like this 'scares the crap out of me'. I'd recommend imaging one partition at a time and resizing them as you put them on the new drive so no 'moving' in involved. To copy the boot loader off a drive dd if=<drive> of=<file> ibs=512 count=1 should do it. Quote
H@L0_F00 Posted December 29, 2008 Author Posted December 29, 2008 I should use a LiveCD for this right? EDIT: Nevermind. I got the process running using Acronis which let me edit the partitions before cloning :) Thanks guys Quote
WhollyMindless Posted December 29, 2008 Posted December 29, 2008 Boot IT NG is also a decent product for this. (Note, there's a trial version that just happens to work for this kind of stuff. Can even boot off of USB - awesome for my Acer Aspire One) Quote
H@L0_F00 Posted December 29, 2008 Author Posted December 29, 2008 Using Acronis, it was succesfully cloned and installed. I'm running Ubuntu right now and haven't booted XP yet but I have no reason not to trust that it'll work Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.