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Forums › Microsoft Windows › Installing a new HDD and booting from it in Win 8


133 posts

Master Geek
Topic # 113184 8-Jan-2013 21:42 Send private message

I had a PC running out of disk so decided to add a new drive.  So now I have an elderly IDE drive and the (new ) SATAII one.  The old drive has C: on it and I would like to move this to the new drive.  Both drives can be seen by the BIOS but the new drive cannot be put into the boot sequence - so is not bootable

Mini-tool Partition Wizard (is very like Partition Magic was) has no facility to do this that I can find and in fact with the aid of Google it seems that the simplest means of achieving this is simply to reinstall Win 8 to a new partition on the new drive (using the ISO file burnt to DVD) and take the hit of reactivation and Update downloads.

I had been hoping to simply copy the contents of C: to the new drive then change the boot device - but this seems impossible.  Is there a way to do this though?

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166 posts

Master Geek

Trusted
  Reply # 742008 9-Jan-2013 00:18 Send private message

If I was trying to do this myself I would ensure that the new drive was formatted/partitioned as I wanted and that the intended boot partition was active. I would then use Acronis to image the current C: and subsequently write this back to the new disk's boot partition. I would keep the old drive as a backup external to the machine and if I wanted a second drive probably start with another new one.

There may still be re-validation issues due to hardware change but would be as bigger deal as a new install.

There are I believe a number of other software solutions e.g. Paragon which I haven't fully explored but you might google "Migrate OS" for more information. Another option you could consider would be using a SSD for the boot partition.


164 posts

Master Geek
  Reply # 742013 9-Jan-2013 01:01 Send private message

This link might help ;-)

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/using-windows-8s-hidden-backup-to-clone-and-recover-your-whole-pc/

16716 posts

Uber Geek

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Biddle Corp
Subscriber
  Reply # 742022 9-Jan-2013 06:40 Send private message

All the HDD manufacturers have their own software to do exactly this, with Seagate using a cut down version of Acronis True Image which is very good.

You haven't said what brand of HDD you have, but you can only use the software for the brand of HDD you have.




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133 posts

Master Geek
  Reply # 742212 9-Jan-2013 12:54 Send private message

sbiddle: All the HDD manufacturers have their own software to do exactly this, with Seagate using a cut down version of Acronis True Image which is very good.

You haven't said what brand of HDD you have, but you can only use the software for the brand of HDD you have.


Dead right - and thanks.  The drive is a Western Digital Caviar.  It came as an OEM package - with just the drive and moisture inhibitor.  I had forgotten about vendor utilities.  WD have available their branded version of Acronis which included a 'clone' option which did the trick.

Interestingly in the BIOS the old drive was listed as drive 0 and the new one as drive 1.  In the boot sequence drive one was not a listed option.  I was able to swap the drives around in the list (ie new=0, old=1) and then the new drive appeared as an option in the boot sequence.

Many thanks Steve - and to everyone else who responded.

1250 posts

Uber Geek
  Reply # 742229 9-Jan-2013 13:21 Send private message

It probably is in the BIOS, most BIOSes have a boot device order (HDD, Optical, USB...) and elsewhere in the BIOS will be the device priority, ie., which HDD you want to use if you choose boot from HDD.

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