Replacing HDD drive of a SSD/HDD combo

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wingclip

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Hi Folks,
I should first explain:
Yesterday, I asked a similar question and a member, "Yogi", helped me out and I thought the problem was solved and marked Yogi's answer as "Best Answer". That effectively closed the topic because it's marked as resolved. However, it was a premature action and I still have the question, (@ Yogi; please do feel free to post any alternatives).

The Issue:
I'm about to replace my wife's 500GB, 5000 RPM Hitachi HDD with a 750 GB, 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda. I have her system setup with a 120GB SSD as the "main, O/S, drive: "C". It contains the Windows 7 64 bit O/S and a couple of other programs like MS Office 2010 Pro.

The remaining software is installed on the HDD, which is the one I want to replace. Yogi recommended "Seagate Wizard" and that sounded like the solution and still may be BUT the Seagate Wizards information covers how to transfer the ENTIRE O/S Drive to another drive and several variations therein.

It does not touch on how to transfer ONLY the HDD side of a SSD/HDD combo system and that's what I need to do. I have a lot of experience in wasting a lot of time trying to make something work that wasn't necessarily made to do what I wanted to accomplish. In fact, way more time than I even care to remember.

So before I go and use up a few days trying to figure out a way to apply the Seagate Wizard to a job it may not be able to do or do correctly, I thought I'd better ask around a little longer and see if anyone has an alternative.

So, I'm open to suggestions, anyone please?
Thanks Rich
Her O/S: Windows 7 64 bit
Her Computer: ASUS M5A97 EVO/ AMD FX 6350 3.91GHz, (LCS)/ Radeon 5700 series/ 16GB x 1600MHz RAM/ 500W PSU
 
Solution
J
You can use any mirroring software, like Acronis True Image (there is a free trial version you can download, this software is one of the very best mirroring and backup programs out there, it simply works). During the beginning of the process, the software will ask you if this is going to be an OS or boot drive, select what is appropriate, which is no in your case, and the software will simply mirror the contents of the drive to the new drive, exactly. Remove old drive, plug in new drive in.
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Are these two discreet drives? Of a hybrid combo?

It also depends exactly what is on that "HDD side". Just files? No problem. Applications as well? OK, now we have issues.

I do not think any of the wizard or migration tools can read what applications are on the HDD, and apply the required changes to an existing registry that lives in another OS.
 
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yoji

yoji

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Hi.. if it was me.. I don't think I would have recommended Seagate Wizard..
Not because its bad.. but because I have never heard of it..(but may be it really was a Yogi and not me)

Anyway - what you are hoping to do should be very easy..
If I was doing it.. I would :
1. Add new HDD to current machine..
2. Copy ALL files to new drive (including hidden files).. drag'n'drop should be fine
3. Remove the old 500gB drive. .and ensure new drive assigned the same drive letter as the old one
4. should be "job done" and your progs should work as normal.

If you really wanted to.. you could clone the old drive to new one. but it not a system drive - so the above should work fine.

HTH
Cheers
 
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13thmonkey

13thmonkey

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you just move it, and make sure it is called the same drive letter in disk management.

so connect all three drives c: (sys) d: (current programs) e: (new program disk).

copy (don't move) everything from d: to e:

and then turn off, disconnect d: reboot and rename e: to d:, you can then reconnect what was D: and reformat.

All this is predicated on you having the small system partition (100MB) on your physical c: drive i.e. your SSD. If it is not on your SSD then TBH a reinstall is needed as it is a pain in the backside to make it work otherwise (i've spent at least 1 day trying to sort it out before).
 
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wingclip

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Thanks for the quick comeback USAFRet;
No, these are NOT hybrid drives. I've built all my computers to have an SSD as the O/S drive and I installed MS Office and Adobe Acrobat in the SSD's as well. ALL other installations of ANY other programs I own are installed in a separate HDD.

The procedure is common now a days and I'd recommend it to anyone. In MY computer, (specs in my signature), I have a 250GB SSD and two 1TB HDD's of which one is dedicated to any and all FSX Flight Sim programs and the other takes anything that isn't in that category.

My wife’s computer, (the computer I'm referring to in the Topic), has the SSD which contains the O/S and MS office and I think a couple others, and the HDD, (the target of this Topic), contains all other installations such as Adobe Reader, Google Chrome, Google Earth, etc.

The thing that makes me hesitate is that even though, when installalling a new program, you set the installation path of a program to go to the HDD side of a SSD/HDD system, it will still 'deposit' certain "reference information" to the SSD. I know that I'll have to rename the New HDD I install in her computer to the name of the HDD I'm removing so that all the information from past installations know where to look.

That's no problem and I can handle that end fine. It's the question of moving that HDD Contents from the HDD I'm replacing to the new one without including the entire contents of the SSD in it as well, (which is what Seagate Wizard was indicting it would do), that I'm trying to deal with.
Rich
 
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J

jitpublisher

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You can use any mirroring software, like Acronis True Image (there is a free trial version you can download, this software is one of the very best mirroring and backup programs out there, it simply works). During the beginning of the process, the software will ask you if this is going to be an OS or boot drive, select what is appropriate, which is no in your case, and the software will simply mirror the contents of the drive to the new drive, exactly. Remove old drive, plug in new drive in.
 
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Solution
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wingclip

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Thanks Yoji, (no, Yogi is a different member), actually, I like that suggestion because I thought of doing exactly that until it occurred to me that I may wind up with a "Permissions Paradox".

BUT, I remember that I once moved all my information from one HDD to another, external one using the Command Prompt and Administrator Rights. Do you know about that method? It's the better way that drag-n-drop because it handles the entire contents and keeps the Permissions like they were.

You've reminded me of that and I thank you but I can't remember what it's called and the details behind it. It's a "In-System" Windows Option and I may be able to do what I'm trying to do using that method. If I just drag and drop the information, I may run into a number of 'little permission' problems as well as the "bigger ones". That's why I'm trying to avoid D&D.

Thanks, Rich
PS; so far, your's looks like a good answer in that it reminded me of the same thing but with the command prompt options.
 
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wingclip

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Thank you! Very good suggestion as well! I completely forgot about Acronis so I'll look into that one. It seems that I remember some diffcult experience with Acronis when I tried using it for something different than this job about a year ago, but I can't remember what it was... My memory is going BAD!!!
 
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Ijack

Ijack

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Just use disk cloning software to clone the old disk to the new one. This preserves everything - permissions and all - and is much better than trying to use drag-and-drop, xcopy, or whatever. Google it and take your pick from the many free program's available.
 
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USAFRet

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You can try any of the migration tools to copy from the secondary HDD to the new secondary HDD.
But I'm not quite convinced that the applications living on that drive will 'just work' with the new OS on the SSD.

You can try it though.
 
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wingclip

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I'm not so sure you quite see what I mean USAFRet. The O/S is not new. You have to remember that the HDD I'm replacing contains all the info it needed when they, (the SSD and the HDD), were initially installed. Therefore, the New HDD I'm installing is simply going to be a Copy of the old one. I know that this can be done and is done all the time.

As you can see by the other replies, it's simply a matter of how to do it w/o losing permissions, and it seems that the Mirror option, (which is cloning), will likely do the trick. I just always had a problem with cloning tools and software because they so often include instructions for doing things that are not exactly what I'm doing. I wind up misinterpreting the instructions and then, BANG! I have a bigger mess than I started with.
Thanks again, Rich
 
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USAFRet

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Then yes, that should work. I guess I thought it was going to be a 'new' OS on the SSD.
 
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wingclip

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Thanks USAFRet, sorry about the confusion there if I wasn't initially clear enough in the first post. Sometimes I start typing away and don't realize that I didn't type what I was thinking..
Rcih
 
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wingclip

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Thanks to all of you! Frankly, all the answers were helpful in one way or the other and I would have picked "Best Answer" for them all if I could. Several of you mentioned Cloning/mirroring etc. but I could only pick one.
Thanks Again! Rich
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Good luck!
 
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