CLONING XP FROM 3 RD PARTITION TO 2ND HARD DRIVE

[esecallum]

I want to clone xp which resides on a 3rd partition of a 4 primary hard partition 500 gb hard drive.

i.e hard drive has windows me on c,data on d ,xp on e,data on f.

i want to clone xp on partition e: with all it's applications to a different 1 tb hard drive to 3rd partition e: also with 4 primary partitions.( c,d,e,f).

Now i cannot use partition cloning tools as the 1tb hard drive has a huge amount of data on partition in excess of 700gb.

i was wandering if it possible to install xp on 1 tb hard drive,on partition e: and then import the xp registry from 500gb xp and copy/paste all the program files.

will this work?

[Ponch]

I cannot use partition cloning tools as the 1tb hard drive has a huge amount of data on partition in excess of 700gb.

If you clone patrtition to partition and there's enough space on the target for all the data on the source to fit, most cloning programs should allow you to do that. Unless I'm missing something here.

[esecallum]

I cannot use partition cloning tools as the 1tb hard drive has a huge amount of data on partition in excess of 700gb.

If you clone patrtition to partition and there's enough space on the target for all the data on the source to fit, most cloning programs should allow you to do that. Unless I'm missing something here.

That would be great but i am terrified that the existing 700gb of data on partition on the new 1 terabyte hard drive would be wiped.

surely the xp partition would replace the700gb partition and data would be gone.

Has anyone cloned a drive but the destination partition had some data on it.WOULD THAT DATA REMAIN OR BE WIPED?

Edited July 19, 2010 by esecallum

[jaclaz]

Has anyone cloned a drive but the destination partition had some data on it.WOULD THAT DATA REMAIN OR BE WIPED?

I guess there is some confusion in terms, (and you need not to SHOUT ).

The term "cloning" is deceiving.

A "clone" is an EXACT copy of something else.

Strictly speaking you cannot "clone" a single partition, you can only "clone" a WHOLE hard disk, unless you re-place the "cloned" partition in exactly the same position and with exactly the same size as it was.

Most "cloning" softwares however do make an exact copy of the source partition AND allow it to be restored on a different position on hard disk OR to shrink it/enlarge it. (which of course is not anymore a real "clone")

If the target drive is NOT already partitioned, it is relatively straightforward.

If the target drive is already partitioned, you need to shrink existing partition(s) to allow for the creation of the new "cloned" partition.

If you want to REPLACE an existing partition with the "cloned" image, obviously data on the previous partition will be lost, as it will be overwritten.

What you may want to explore is another approach, i.e. file-based copy, something along the lines of what XXCLONE (a very good example of an improperly named program ) does:

http://www.xxclone.com/

http://www.xxclone.com/itheory.htm

But the real problem, if I may, is well before the imaging/cloning one, you are saying that you have 700 Gb of valuable data stored on that hard disk ONLY, that you have NO current backup of them (you should have TWO backups of that data) and you are not even going to back it up once in this occasion.

Your data is at great risk anyway, you shouldn't even think about doing "heavy" drive operations without a valid backup (actually TWO).

jaclaz

[esecallum]

Has anyone cloned a drive but the destination partition had some data on it.WOULD THAT DATA REMAIN OR BE WIPED?

I guess there is some confusion in terms, (and you need not to SHOUT ).

The term "cloning" is deceiving.

A "clone" is an EXACT copy of something else.

Strictly speaking you cannot "clone" a single partition, you can only "clone" a WHOLE hard disk, unless you re-place the "cloned" partition in exactly the same position and with exactly the same size as it was.

Most "cloning" softwares however do make an exact copy of the source partition AND allow it to be restored on a different position on hard disk OR to shrink it/enlarge it. (which of course is not anymore a real "clone")

If the target drive is NOT already partitioned, it is relatively straightforward.

If the target drive is already partitioned, you need to shrink existing partition(s) to allow for the creation of the new "cloned" partition.

If you want to REPLACE an existing partition with the "cloned" image, obviously data on the previous partition will be lost, as it will be overwritten.

What you may want to explore is another approach, i.e. file-based copy, something along the lines of what XXCLONE (a very good example of an improperly named program ) does:

http://www.xxclone.com/

http://www.xxclone.com/itheory.htm

But the real problem, if I may, is well before the imaging/cloning one, you are saying that you have 700 Gb of valuable data stored on that hard disk ONLY, that you have NO current backup of them (you should have TWO backups of that data) and you are not even going to back it up once in this occasion.

Your data is at great risk anyway, you shouldn't even think about doing "heavy" drive operations without a valid backup (actually TWO).

jaclaz

Thanks for that.

Would using xxclone replace existing data , i mean 700gb of data already on it?

Also the xp i am copying is on partition E and and would be copied to Partition E also on the new 1 terabyte bdrive and the question would it actually boot since i understand some xp flies like NTDLR and Boot files are located on C partition...Would xxcopy copy these too or would it be done manually?

Would i need to remove the original hard drive before booting up the new or or does xxclone solve this.

I did the FAQ on the xxclone website but these issues were not made clear....

[jaclaz]

Would using xxclone replace existing data , i mean 700gb of data already on it?

No, unless there is a file with a "same" name.

Also the xp i am copying is on partition E and and would be copied to Partition E also on the new 1 terabyte bdrive and the question would it actually boot since i understand some xp flies like NTDLR and Boot files are located on C partition...Would xxcopy copy these too or would it be done manually?

No, you need to change settings manually.

Additionally, since the "second" drive won't have the same disk signature as the "first" one, you will need to edit the Registry (the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices key) to allow correct partition enumeration.

Additionally yet, it is possible that due to the size of the partitions (unknown) the system bootloader files may get beyond reach of the bootsector.

Would i need to remove the original hard drive before booting up the new or or does xxclone solve this.

I don't think that xxclone will do it for you, but cannot say, I pointed you to it only as an example of the "non-standard" approach that you need because you want to do a "non-standard" thing.

jaclaz