Upgrading system disk without reinstalling windows
Original system configuration
30G Seagate IDE C: single partition Windows XP bootable 90% full
30G Seagate IDE F: (FAT) + H: (NTFS)[page files] + a linux partition
(That fills one IDE controller)
Second controller has DVD reader + CD-RW + DVD
I want to replace the first drive with a bigger (500G) faster (7200
c.f. 5400) newer drive. So A western digital WD500AAKB-00Y5A0 500G from
Umart for $128
Get
- clonzsilla liveCD http://www.clonezilla.org/
- GParted live CD http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php
(using antistatic wrist strap)
Disconnect drive 2 and reboot to confirm you know which is the system
drive (repeat procedure if needed :-) The system will say it has no
master drive )
Set jumpers on new drive to be slave and install in place of drive 2.
(I left the new drive hanging, with original drives left in original
mounts.)
Boot windows. (Not sure if this is needed or just a long waste of time,
since the partitioning work is ignored later).
My computer -> right click -> Manage
Disk management. Should see something like
[Disk 1 (unknown)][unallocated]
Right click the Disk 1 and select Initialize disk
Then right click [unallocated] -> New partition
"basic", "max" (i.e. whole disk), assign letter "f".,
Reboot to clonezilla live CD.
/dev/hdc == /livemedia which is the CD
/dev/hda == disk 1, the windows system disk (C:)
/dev/hdb == disk 2, the new disk (F:)
There is a little setup of language ad keyboard/keymap (I used defaults)
Run the Clonezilla live
Select the disk/partition -> disk/partition option
select source = hda and target = hdb
Choose the defaults. The target should be bootable, there should be an
existing boot record. It'll ask to install grub, but recognises the
existing boot loader.
Clonezilla will produce for you a 30G partition on the new 500G drive
At this stage I let windows reboot. I think this was wrong, as it
detected a system configuration change and rebooted a second time.
Instead reboot to gparted (the partition editor).
This goes through some keyboard, language, X setup. Let it pick the
defaults (rather than try to get high res on the live CD).
When X eventually starts gparted starts which is a GUI partition editor.
Select HDB (not the default HDA which is the original system disk). It
should show 300G of 500G
Select "resize/move"
Drag the right arrow of the disk space to far right. (Leave left alone
as this has boot sector offsets etc).
Apply (you may want to watch the details).
shutdown to halt (I used the command line "shutdown -h now", as the
exit button didn't work for me).
Crack open the case again, reconfigure the new disk from slave to
master (actually I picked master with slave present, but I noticed the
original disk was just set to master).
The original second drive hasn't changed from being slave.
Connect up new drive into the bay of the original system drive and
reattach drive 2.
reboot windows
let it disk check the new c: drive. (The resize of the partition has to
be checked by Windows).
It may detect a changed system configuration, and want to reboot.
You should have you new system disk!