Installed new hard drive, imaged, need to redo partitions

[Blind Dragon]

This is on Vista

So I had an old IDE 120 GB drive for about 6 years now. It was top of the line when I got it.

Today I bought a Maxtor 500GB SATA drive.

I used Acronis Image software. To copy all my info from the old drive to the new drive, it re-created my partitions on the new drive just bigger. I didn't really want 2 partitions on 1 drive. The reason the old drive was set up that way was to have a primary boot partition and the 2nd partition was my logical drive. So if I format then I could blow out C:\ and leave the logical drive D:\ in place.

Well now I would like the 500GB SATA drive to be my primary (1 partition)

And I would also like the 120GB IDE drive to be the logical drive for storing data.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Today I imaged the old drive to the new drive and also did a repair install using my upgrade disk for vista. All the programs work fine, it is just the partitiions that I want to change

new drive has C:\ and D:\
old drive now has G:\ and H:\

I want
new drive to have C:\
and old drive D:\

I was thinking of using computer management -> disk management to format and shrink the volume, but this is not my area of expertise.

 

[kimsland]

new drive has C:\ and D:\
old drive now has G:\ and H:\

I want
new drive to have C:\
and old drive D:\

Oh

(And by the way I signed off, meant to be for a few hours, like 8Hrs, and your post got me back on)

Anyway, no not Disk Management
-> Changing the main drive letters is not advisable, too many registry edits, and logs of where things downloaded, and installs/uninstalls log locations, the list goes on and on.

Backup, re-install (clean)
Make an image of C drive, which will be restored as C drive

That's the best advise, from someone spending 2 full days trying to correct this issue.
Now others may reply with just do this... But just refer to the arrow -> above.

 

[Blind Dragon]

hmm, thanks, I just see no point of having 4 seperate partitions

I will leave the primary drive alone with 2 partitions and just blow away the old drive and make it a storage bin

 

[xxdanielxx]

If you want to merge them I can upload a tool I use which works very good

 

[kimsland]

You mean GParted ?

 

[xxdanielxx]

No I have never used that one I had to get one that work on server 2003. Is Gparted any good

 

[kimsland]

Well it's free, actually I use Partition Magic, so I really don't know how Gparted fairs.
If you want to upload your merge program (zipped up )
That would be good

Also Blind Dragon, can you just quickly unzip this file https://www.techspot.com/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=34394&d=1216601222
It is related to this thread: https://www.techspot.com/vb/showthread.php?p=642093#post642093
I want to know if I have a bug (Note: no bug in zip file, just my system unzipping it)

 

[Blind Dragon]

i extracted it to my desktop no problem

 

[LookinAround]

Don't know if you've solved your problem yet but i can give a thumbs up to my experiences with Acronis Disk Director to help manage as well as recover partitons.
- You can download and use the free trial (gonna guess 15day same as their True Image product free trial)
- And can purchase it for $29.99 (pretty reasonable, i think)

 

[Blind Dragon]

Well, I just used vista disk management to delete H:\ then extend G:\

So now I am down to C:\ D:\ G:\ - If I could combine D:\ into C:\ that would be nice, without loosing any data. I don't want to risk it as my computer is running great. I have 560GB free between the 2 drives

I formatted the old drive also with disk management - I have Max Blast which is powered by Acronis and may attempt it, but probably not as I don't want to fix something that isn't broke

 

[LookinAround]

if you don't mind the physical time it takes use Acronis True Image to ghost the drives then download the free trial of Acronis Disk Director to resize/manage the partitions.

In worst case, only takes a few mouse clicks to restore the ghost image + real elapsed time tho you needn't be there while it takes it to complete (i assume you have an Acronis Recovery CD as well to CYA in worst case)

 

[xxdanielxx]

You can use a partition tool also check the link below it is a boot cd with lots of tools they have a partition folder with tools I can not remember if they have one to merge the partitions

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

 

[LookinAround]

i've built a ubcd4win disc not too long back and can go find it, check and report back... but with a 15day free trial (and a cost of $30) just my opinion that is still cost effective to give Acronis a shot. They have a pretty good track record as well with their products from my own experience.

 

[LookinAround]

I see my ubcd4win disc isn't the latest version which is now v3.20 just released 7/4/08 so here's the link to the tools in the current download (but a free Acronis to get you past the hump has still gotta be easier then going thru the ubcd4win build process and then foolin around with the freeware tools i'd guess)

 

[xxdanielxx]

Yes they do I have a boot cd of it

 

[LookinAround]

btw.. i'm not at all knocking down the value of having a ubcd4win CD around to handle recovery and other cases. (I've found very useful).

Am just suggesting, you can add UBCD4WIN to your toolkit of "tools to have around". but still take advantage of the 15day free Acronis as it is, well, free also. Then you can decide if what they offer is worth the $30.