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Old 01-03-2009, 05:08 PM   #1
okos
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Copy os and files to a new bootable hard drive. SOLVED


Hi, my parents have an old computer with windows me. They filled up the hdd and need more space. I first considered just adding a slave drive, but thought it might be better just to copy all of the content from the old drive to the new drive. Then, make the new drive as the master and the old as a backed up copy slave drive.

Any suggestions?

BTW as you guessed, the format is fat32.

EDIT:
I solved the issue. See post #22

Last edited by okos; 01-09-2009 at 12:17 AM.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 05:11 PM   #2
repo
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You could use norton ghost, or a linux equivalent and a linux live CD
 
Old 01-03-2009, 05:59 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by repo View Post
You could use norton ghost, or a linux equivalent and a linux live CD
Looking for a linux equivalent.
I did find this one.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:15 PM   #4
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http://www.clonezilla.org/

You can use clonezilla to copy disk to disk, partition to partition, partition to image. Worth taking a look at.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:21 PM   #5
Brian1
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Also Ghost for Linux

Brian
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:27 PM   #6
haertig
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From Linux, "ntfsclone" and "ntfsresize". These are on SystemRescueCD, a very good LiveCD for system repair/maintenance. Other LiveCD's probably have these tools too.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Better yet, update your parents from ancient Windows ME to a modern Linux distro. Your remote support options to help them will be much better (assuming you are their primary "tech support"), and if they're the typical "parents" they mostly just use email, web surfing, a printer, and maybe Word documents. All can be handled easily in Linux.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:27 PM   #7
okos
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Quote:
Originally Posted by yancek View Post
http://www.clonezilla.org/

You can use clonezilla to copy disk to disk, partition to partition, partition to image. Worth taking a look at.
I was looking to avoid using an image. Also, I read somewhere clonezilla is more for servers then pcs
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:34 PM   #8
okos
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Quote:
Originally Posted by haertig View Post
From Linux, "ntfsclone" and "ntfsresize". These are on SystemRescueCD, a very good LiveCD for system repair/maintenance. Other LiveCD's probably have these tools too.

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

Better yet, update your parents from ancient Windows ME to a modern Linux distro. Your remote support options to help them will be much better (assuming you are their primary "tech support"), and if they're the typical "parents" they mostly just use email, web surfing, a printer, and maybe Word documents. All can be handled easily in Linux.
Actually, they mainly use it for an OLD accounting program.
The main reason not to upgrade is setting up new accounting software.
They rarely use their AOL dialup.

I was just looking at the sysresccd. I was just reading up on what it does. But, as I stated before, I wanted to avoid creating an image. I would then have to restore the image either from a bunch of cds onto the new hdd or perhaps put the image on a second partition on the new hdd and restore the image from there.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 06:53 PM   #9
haertig
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Quote:
Originally Posted by okos View Post
Actually, they mainly use it for an OLD accounting program. The main reason not to upgrade is setting up new accounting software.
You ought to see if that runs on Linux under Wine. If the reason you don't want to setup new accounting software is because your parents won't/couldn't learn how to use it, that is a valid reason. But if it's only for your convenience in the setup part, then you should realize that installing and cloning to a new drive will be more work for you than setting up new software.

Quote:
But, as I stated before, I wanted to avoid creating an image. I would then have to restore the image either from a bunch of cds onto the new hdd or perhaps put the image on a second partition on the new hdd and restore the image from there.
Why wouldn't you just clone directly from old harddrive to new harddrive? Why create and store an intermediate image file (whether on CD or other media)? If their old computer only has one IDE controller (which would control two devices), just temporarily unplug the second (unneeded) device (probably a CD-ROM drive) and connect the new harddrive in it's place for the cloning.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 07:32 PM   #10
okos
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Since I have not done this before, I can only guessed that to use clonezilla and similar programs, you first have to create an image of the original harddrive and save that image somewhere other then your destined partition of the new harddrive. (Perhaps a bunch of CDs?) Then extract the image to the new drive.
Is that correct?
If so, Id rather not create the image. I would probably have to save it on a second partition.

There is more to it then just setting up a new accounting program. Years of data would have to be re-entered. That is something they do not want to do.
Therefore, I still think the best bet is to move everything to the new hdd.

I was wondering what is the best linux program to use or perhaps the best way to go about it is the clone method.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 08:54 PM   #11
haertig
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Quote:
Originally Posted by okos View Post
...you first have to create an image of the original harddrive and save that image somewhere other then your destined partition of the new harddrive.
No. You CAN do it that way if you want, but you don't have to. The easiest way is to clone DIRECTLY from old harddrive to new harddrive.

Quote:
There is more to it then just setting up a new accounting program. Years of data would have to be re-entered.
Depends. Depending on what, specifically, the "old accounting program" is, data may be directly importable into a newer program. If they're using Quicken, just about everything can import that data. If it's some obscure program, maybe not. Or, as I suggested as an alternate, try running their old accounting program along with it's old data under "Wine" on Linux.

These are just alternate suggestions to move them away from the really old, and never very good (IMHO), Windows ME. If you're happy to keep using Windows ME, more power to you. Cloning is just the way to continue that.

Quote:
I was wondering what is the best linux program to use or perhaps the best way to go about it is the clone method.
You say this as if "linux program" and "cloning" are mutually exclusive concepts. They are not. Linux has "ntfsclone", "g4l", "clonezilla", "dd", and other programs that are all considered "cloning". Just like "ghost" and "trueimage" are both cloning programs that run under Windows (or plain old DOS, if you boot directly into them). These cloning programs save time and space by "knowing" about a filesystem type and not wasting time copying unused areas. However, they can all do a raw bit-for-bit copy, which is no more than cloning everything blindly, irregardless if it was being used or not (this wastes a bit of time, but works just fine in the end).
 
Old 01-03-2009, 09:09 PM   #12
syg00
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IMHO cloning Windoze is a mugs game - I've even had problems using (Nortons) ghost under XP itself. Cloning from Linux is fraught because the Linux tools don't understand the registry dependencies.

Others say they get it to work o.k., but I only clone (via cp, rsync ...) Linux these days.
 
Old 01-03-2009, 09:18 PM   #13
haertig
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Cloning Windows is more risky because Windows keeps track of where it's installed internally. So you can't just do a bit-for-bit copy from partition #1 to partition #2 for example. Ghost and Trueimage know how to "fix" Windows cloning between different partitions (in theory), or you can fix it yourself after the bit-for-bit copy.

For Windows, it's simplest to remember: If it's currently installed on the second partition, clone it to ANOTHER second partition on a different disk. If you want to learn about how to manually fix Windows after moving it, or make it boot from an extended partition (which many people say can't be done), I suggest studying here: http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/
 
Old 01-03-2009, 11:16 PM   #14
okos
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These two links here and here, both talk about successfully copying windows to another hdd. Next time I go to my parents, I think I will try the first one. It is more of a hands on approach. As long as I don't accidentally dd things backwards, there should be no issue.
If it doesn't work, no harm no fowl. I can always wipe then new disk clean again and try something else.
 
Old 01-04-2009, 12:30 AM   #15
yancek
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Quote:
Since I have not done this before, I can only guessed that to use clonezilla and similar programs, you first have to create an image of the original harddrive and save that image somewhere other then your destined partition of the new harddrive. (Perhaps a bunch of CDs?) Then extract the image to the new drive.
Is that correct?
NO! As I indicated in my earlier post, you can clone a partition on one drive to another partition on the same drive or on another drive. You can clone the entire disk to another disk including the mbr. You can, if you wish, create an image on the same or another drive and then use that image to re-install. There are two versions of clonezilla, one a server version to clone to a number of drives at the same time and another version which is more basic and appropriate for a home user.

Obviously, you need to read the documentation and instructions and understand them to be successful but it's not that complicated.
 
  


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