Moving Windows 7 Install Between Partitions / Drives Or Controllers?
Sep 17, 2012
Is it possible to move my Windows 7 installation from the partition (both the Sys. Reserved & OS partitions) of one drive on one controller to the partition of another drive on a different controller, AND have it boot? I know "something" would have to altered, but I'm not sure "what" or "how". Is this even possible without going through a lot of hoops. Specifically I have an installation of W7x64 installed on the 1st partition of the master drive on a PATA controller. I want to move it to the 1st partition of the master drive on my SATA controller.
FROM PATA0 {sys reserved}{OS install}{data}
TO SATA0 {sys reserved}{OS install}{data}
I also have another install on the 2nd partition of my SATA4 controller and want to move it to the 1st partition of my SATA0 controller
FROM SATA4 {data}{sys reserved}{OS install}
TO SATA0 {sys reserved}{OS install}{data}
When physically moving a HDD that was on one motherboard to a another motherboard is it recommended to back up all partitions for the HDD or just as long as you have the active windows partition HDD backed up, it doesn't matter?
I have a PC which shows not only my C: drive for Windows 7 but also various Vista drives & partitions - when I boot into Windows 7.So, how do I hide my D:, E:, F:, etc. drives which are for Vista? I don't want to see them when I'm in Windows 7.
Recently, my ancient desktop died on me. I had some stuff stored on the main C drive (40 GB) and some on an external 1 TB drive. I put the 40 GB HD in the external module to upload it to a laptop with a 360 GB HD. I would then like to transfer that 40 GB to the 1 TB drive. When I plug in the external with the 40 GB, it appears that the Windows 7 machine does not read it or pick it up. It recognizes it as an external device, but not as a drive.
Partitioned that drive, installed Windows 7 Beta on D:
Bought a second hard drive
Partitioned it to to drives, E and F
I just bought the Windows 7 Pro Upgrade, made a fresh install on E: with the hopes that it would change E: to C: like the beta did on my primary drive.
It didn't, now my drive lettering looks awful and it's confusing me lol.
I don't need the Windows XP or the Windows 7 Beta installation (on disk0), I would like to combine those partitions back into 1 drive.
Is there any way I can fix this mess? maybe make my current windows location C: ?
I had a computer built for me that includes a new 1TB drive running Windows 7 64-bit for the OS and I would like to move over the drives from my old computer to be used as storage drives. Here's my questions:
1. I have a 750GB drive from my old computer that was running the OS after installing it what is the procedure to reformat it for a storage drive?
2. I also have a 500GB drive from my old computer that was being used as a storage after installing it will my backed up files still be intact or could Windows somehow delete those files?
3. Since my old computer still has a Windows 7 license tied to it I might put in an old drive, load Windows, and either sell it cheap or give it away. When you load Windows with the intention of someone else being the End User do you just quit the install a certain point along the way?
I have Asus N55SF laptop, with Windows 7 SP1 64 bit. Also, I have 2 external hard drives. One with USB 3.0, and one USB 2.0. Following problems, I am going to describe below, happen to the both of them. Just to mention, external drives are tested on desktop computer and following problems do not happen.
Let me now describe what happens when I try certain actions: - When I try to copy large files (10 or more GB) I get an error that destination is no longer visible. External drives disappear from My Computer and I can't do safe remove. But when I copy files using programs FastCopy or TeraCopy everything copies well and drives do not disappear. - When I try to do Windows Backup and encrypt them using BitLocker drives also disappear, and are not visible within OS.
There is a difference between external hard with USB 3.0 port and the one with 2.0 port: - When one with 3.0 disappears after described actions I can't see it from Device Manager, I can see it only after windows reboot. USB 3.0 disk connects to one USB 3.0 port on laptop. - When one with 2.0 port disappears I can see it from Device Manager, and I only have to unplug it, and plug it in again to see it. USB 2.0 disk connects to 2 USB 2.0 ports on laptop.
Common to both disks is that when then disappear from My computer the diode on the external disk cases are still flashing, what probably means that they have some power. Both disk are formated to NTFS, and Allocation unit size is set to: Default. Their removal policy is set to: Better performance (default). On laptop I only have Windows, Office and Asus drivers. Antivirus is: MSE.
i own Garrysmod, a steam source-mod. It is a game that grows dynamically as I connect to server's, download addons, and receive mandatory game updates.The game file has exceeded 50Gb before.After getting infected with "Windows 7 Antivirus Pro" and making (I freely admit it, and I REALLY should have known better) a terrible mistake and breaking all .exe's while removing the infection, I was forced to re-install windows. However, for whatever reason (another stupid mistake) I re-installed windows on the wrong hard-drive. So now my C: drive is only 150 Gb, and my backup (both of them) are 1TB.I do not have the space to have garrysmod on my C: drive, which is where steam is installed (Last time I tried installing it somewhere else it would not work.)Now that the background information is done lets move on to what you can help me with!
I have been looking for a way to install garrysmod on another hard-drive without reinstalling steam and trying to get it to work on another hard-drive. I believe I have found one, but I am really a coward when it comes to this sort of thing, (I HATE re-formatting) the solution I have found apparently tells the computer that the directory/file is on C: when it is actually on another hard-drive, but I found it in an old forum thread, and the member that had posted it was banned.
I have just deleted all partitions on my laptop hard drive to install windows 7 and messed something up...I know cannot install windows 7 as it just sticks at the setup is starting screen..can I put the drive in my pc (running xp) and save it somehow ? I have nothing on the laptop to repair or anything as far as I can see ...
I have installed Windows 7 next to my old Windows XP (so it's a dualboot situation). I have 2 physical HDD's (320 GB each) and 6 logical drives (2 + 4 primary partitions, all NTFS). After installing Windows 7, two of 4 partitions in one hdd have become inaccessible - disk manager still shows them, but I can't neither set a drive letter, nor view properties. I get the following error:
"The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by usin the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart computer."
Both of the inaccessible partitions are fine in Windows XP. Any ideas or solutions ?
I have a Asus Eee Pc 1005ha that i want to install windows 7 on. I'm running xp with a single hdd (149.05gb total) that has 4 partitions set up like this. C: 72.06gb NFTS (system), D: 72.05gb NFTS, PE: 4.89gb FAT32 (unknown partition), No Volume: 47mb unknown type (EFI system partition) this partition displays diagonal lines in disk management. I want to remove these so I only have one C: drive (149gb) where win 7 will be installed. How would I go about removing these during the install procedure? Should i just delete the no volume, PE and D: drive? Or should I delete all 4 partitions? Little confused on this rather ask before I do something wrong. From what I read the 47mb partition is the asus boot booster which speeds up boot time which I don't think I need with win 7.
I have a 500 GB Hard Disk.I want to make 9 partitions of various sizes & Install Windows 7 64 bit ( Ultimate ) in the first partition.I installed this Hard Disk as slave to my current Hard Disk & tried using disk management but it makes all partitions as Primary & doesn't give me a choice to create an extented partition within which I can make 8 Logical partitions.
I have very limited knowledge of Hardware.Also do I need to make any partition active & if yes how & what does active do ?
I have a little problem.I have windows XP and I wanted to install Windows 7.All went well till the part where I deleted the existing partitions and created new ones.The problem is after this step the installation failed and an error message appeared :,,Windows cannot install required files. The file may be corrupt or missing. Make sure all files required for installation are available, and restart the installation.
Damn Windows Update started installing a video card driver. My system is a Dell Vostro 430 and has an ATI HD 4350 (I think), but however, for some stupid reason it can only work with Dell's video driver. So when Windows Update installed the official driver for me, by the time I realised what it was doing it was too late. My screens went black; an incompatible driver screwed everything up.
Worse yet, it was still installing updates, so I was scared to turn my computer off in case it would create major problems. After waiting for four hours I decided it was time to pull the plug. After restarting the computer, it kept rebooting when it started loading Windows 7, and then soon after it didn't even get that far; it told me there was no compatible SATA device found and it refused to boot full stop. Trust this to happen at assignment hand-in week. I've got so much work to do.
I went to the library and downloaded an Ubuntu ISO and burned it to disc. I also got a legit ISO (I'm a student and use MSDN) of Windows 7 x86, since Windows 7 x64 had its problems with the software I use for my course. First of all I backed up all of my uni work using Ubuntu as a live CD, which worked okay. I moved other important data from my Windows (main) partition to my other partitions (Music, Games, TV/Films, etc) since I knew I was going to be formatting my system partition for a reinstallation.
I have two HDs installed. A 500GB one and a 1.5TB one. The drives seem to still be working since I could access them in Ubuntu. However, most of the partitions were formatted as dynamic partitions, not basic. It seemed that the partitions on my 500GB drive were basic, whereas the ones on my 1.5TB were dynamic. This is why it disallowed me to install Windows 7 on the 1.5TB drive. (It dislikes dynamic partitions for whatever reason.) However, I formatted the original basic system partition and started installing Windows 7 x86 on it. It got to 100% and was finalising installation, until it halted, told me the installation had failed, and that I'd need to restart and try again. Every time I have tried, it has failed at that point.
I don't know what the heck to do. I can't remove the partitions that exist because they contain a lot of data that I really want. I also have no means of backing up the data. I have no DVD discs left (and it would take a damn lot to back up hundreds of gigs), and no external HDs. Just for the sake of trying it out, I tried installing 7 x64 and got the same error, so I don't think it's x86-specific.
So I spent a lot of time getting my windows 7 install the way I want. I plan on upgrading to a new lenovo w530 when they are released relatively soon. I'm not sure the best way to move my windows installation EXACTLY like it is to the new machine. I will be transferring the physical SSD itself to the new machine so imaging it to a new drive i not a step I need to take.
I have a 320gb (255 free) drive and just purchased a 120gb SSD. I have external SATA -> USB bays and extra computers that can do the transferring. My windows partition is currently only 45gb. The current 320gb drive has 4 partitions 2 of which are 10g+ recovery partitions I no longer want. (and can use the space now that I am on a small drive). Windows 7 built in backup will only image the exact partition sizes, meaning if I was going to a bigger drive that's fine I could resize after. but because im going to a smaller drive i cant even write the image to it. Acronis this got me very close, it cloned the drive (including recovery partitions, but i planned on removed those afterwards) but failed to boot, I ran windows recovery to try and rebuild the boot sector but it wasn't able to. How can I keep everything but switch drives? The best thing I can think of now (and very sad) is to install a fresh copy of windows 7 than erase the install partition and copy over the install partition from the 320gb drive, and I have a strong suspicion this wont go smoothly.
I cant installing windows 7 or 8 on any partition (D, E, F, G) except C partition, so I try to delete them and create a new partition but I cant also (delete and new icon are disable).
In the past I've migrated 7 from one hdd to another by doing a backup to a usb drive, then swapping the drives and restoring to the new one. What I need to do now is a twist on that. My MB is one of the new p67s that has the faulty intel sata ports, and will eventually be recalled. The 4 6Gps sata ports on the board are not affected by the chipset problem, so I plan on just using them instead (plus I just got a 6G seagate drive that I wanted to use anyway). What I envision happening is restoring to the new drive on an entirely different sata adapter and port #, and the system not booting. I assume I could get around this by booting to a command prompt and using bcedit, but am not 100% on that.
I have a PC with 2 hard drives- the first hard drive has a single partition and windows 7 64-bit is installed on this hard disk.Now I wish to install CentOS 6 on the first partition of the second hard disk.I have created the dvd for installing Cent OS also.How do I configure the boot loader in Windows? If I install Linux on second hard disk, will this overwrite the Windows Boot Loader? How do I create a dual boot system so that the windows boot loader correctly shows linux as an option, so that I am able to load either Windows 7 (existing) or Linux(on second hard disk- not yet installed)
ASUS P7P55D-E EVO 2X80gb Western Digital SATA Drives 2x2TB Samsung Spintpoint SATA Drives
I have already been using the machine with another 80Gb Western Digital SATA Drive with Windows 7 Pro 64Bit installed and now want to convert to RAID 5 for redunancy in case of Drive failure (We all say we will back up but we are all lazy when it comes to it LOL).I have taken out the original OS drive and plugged it into the E-SATA connector on the MOBO, gone into the BIOS, turned on RAID for the SATA Ports on the MOBO, and connected the 2 X 80Gb Boot drives. Entered the Hardware RAID Controller POST, and created the RAID 5 Volume from the 2 X 80Gb Discs.Now boot with Acronis Wester Digital edition.Clone the Original 80Gb Disc to the new Raid Array.Shut machine off, remove original OS 80gb Disc from E-SATA port.Boot machine.It starts to boot, and gets as far as the Windwos 7 Microsoft 4 Colour logo and then I get an error and then have to boot into Windows 7 from DVD and go through the repair process.When the Repair has run it reports the following:
The following startup option will be repaired:
Name: Windows Boot Manager Identifier: {9DEA862C-5CDD-4E70-ACC1-F32B344D4795}
The following startup options will be added:
Name: Windows Recovery Environment (recovered) Path: Recoverye52d0bc2-1f15-11df-af10-d764fe3715b8Winre.wim Windows Device: Partition=D76190 MB)
A copy of the current boot configuration data will be saved as:C:BootBCD.Backup.0001 However it fails to do the update How do I get this RAID to boot successfully? I *don't* want to have to re-install the Operating System as that is just too painful a thought?
I am doing a motherboard upgrade for a friend. I need to know how I can move his hard drive with his current OS instal to the new motherboard without having to do a fresh Windows 7 install. He has too much that cannot be replaced. Is there a way to do this?
I have a Vista Home Premium laptop and a Windows 7 upgrade disk. I want to clean install 7, but I want to keep hold of my files (I know I'll lose my programs). My laptop came with two partitions on the hard drive, C for the OS and D which I've used for files and backup. My question is this: can I clean install Windows 7 onto C without losing all the files that are on D?
I have installed Windows 7 next to my old Windows XP (so it's a dualboot situation). I have 2 physical HDD's (320 GB each) and 6 logical drives (2 + 4 primary partitions, all NTFS). After installing Windows 7, two of 4 partitions in one hdd have become inaccessible - disk manager still shows them, but I can't neither set a drive letter, nor view properties. I get the following error:
"The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by usin the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart computer."
Both of the inaccessible partitions are fine in Windows XP. Any ideas or solutions ? ;/
I have a drive with 2 partitions 450GB each and a 100GB partition which I use for files shared on a SVN. Currently I am using windows 7 home premium but I just got Ultimate from a friend who gave it to me as a gift. Can I install ultimate on one of the partitions and leave the rest untouched? I have important files like documents/spreadsheets for work and family photos on my primary hard drive that currently has home premium, I use the other partition for easy organization of all my games. So my question is that is there a way for me to install ultimate on that second 450GB partition and then delete windows boot files and everything from the other one to make ultimate the only bootable partition? If not then are there any cheap external drives, preferably eSATA, that I can use because I am on a budget?
I recently installed a fresh copy of Windows on my SSD. During setup I opted to delete all my old partitions on the drive, however I did not format the drive. Will this decision have an impact on the performance of the drive? Should I have reformatted the unallocated space on the drive to get better performance?
First some info: Windows 7 Professional x64, Intel x58 Chipset So, looking in my device manager I've noticed that a lot of the stuff are not updated.i.e.: [URL] The date is still June 2006 According to DriverEasy they need to be updated: [URL] Other devices include the devices like these: [URL]First I tried to do the automatic update through device manager, but Windows insists that these are up to date.So then I went here: Intel� Driver Update Utility Ran the auto detection and installed everything it says I needed. These are still not updated.Then I grabbed the download via DriverEasy, and placed the Windows 7 version of these in a folder, then pointed to them. Update still say the current drivers are up to date.
I'm trying to install Windows 7 x64 on a machine that currently has the Windows 7 RC on it. When I boot from the DVD, it immediately goes into "Windows is loading files...", which it does for 30 minutes or so and then reboots, at which point I get a message that says that Windows cannot start because files have changed.
Normally when I boot from the DVD, the first thing it asks me is whether I want to create/delete partitions, do a fresh install or an upgrade, etc. I'm not getting any of that. Anyone know what's wrong?
