How to transfer all installed programs from an old to a new HDD

Scott Thackrey · Oct 13, 2014

Hi there,

I have been doing some testing of my new gaming PC (getting really rubbish scores on Valley) and have found that the really old HDD (about 8 years old SATA1) I have in there is probably slowing things down quite a bit, so I went ahead and bought a new WD black HDD. I was wondering how I copy everything from the old drive to the new, including the OS. Can I just clone the old disks to the new and then remove them? The thought of reinstalling everything sounds like a nightmare. Any thoughts on why I am getting such terrible Valley scores, are my thoughts of the HDD correct?

Really appreciate your help.

Spec:
FX8350
AMD R9 280 3Gb graphics card
Corsair Vengence 1600 16gb
ASUS sabertooth 990fx R2.0

MeteorsRaining · Oct 13, 2014

Yes cloning the disk would do. Macrium Reflect is a good app to do just that. And yes it can be due to bad or old HDD, 8 years is quite a good amount of time, but what are the scores?

Scott Thackrey · Oct 13, 2014

MeteorsRaining :

I cant remember off the top of my head, I think it was ~1000 with average FPS of 30 on ultra. Ill check when I get home from work. Thanks for your comment. I guess I dont have to play about with disk letters to make sure its reading from the right location, or does it not work like that?

D_Know_WD · Oct 13, 2014

Hi there Scott Thackrey,

If your primary HDD is not hooked up, then the letters on the cloned drive will match what you have on the primary HDD. You should not face any issues with that.
Macrium Reflect is a good choice. You can also check out Acronis True Image WD Edition: http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

MeteorsRaining · Oct 13, 2014

D_Know_WD explained about drive letter well, you won't face issues there, and changing the letter from Disk Management is easy in case. Acronis is another good option.
Also, yes 1k score is a bit low, HDD upgrade however should not make a significant difference, have you checked your Read/write speeds with app like Crystal Disk Mark?

Scott Thackrey · Oct 13, 2014

MeteorsRaining :

No I havent looked at that, will do. I just noticed that the slowdown during benchmarking was linked to when I could hear the HDD reading/writing. When the HDD made no sound I was getting ~45fps. So I hoped that buying a better HDD would maybe solve it. Probably also the graphics card which I am not as impressed with compared to my older GTX750. I used to be Nvidia all the way so decided to try out the AMD R9. I am regretting that now! Ill get an nVidia again next time. Really appreciate all your help here.

MeteorsRaining · Oct 13, 2014

Seems like HDD is wearing out, and R9 290 is a high end card, fairly good for maxed out gaming.

Scott Thackrey · Oct 15, 2014

D_Know_WD :

Morning,

So I used the Acronis software to clone the disk last night which went fine. The computer powered down and then I disconnected the old disk and powered up. It came up with the error that there was no operating system. I realised that I had to change the boot device in the BIOS so did that. Now it comes up with a BOOTMGR is missing error. Looking at other forums I have seen that I need to sort this out using a command under the windows setup CD. Ill do that tonight, so fingers crossed. Just wanted to say thanks again for your help.

All the best,
Scott.

D_Know_WD · Oct 15, 2014

Hope that you will resolve this issue.

A couple of links related to this error message and possible causes:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/bootmgr-is-missing.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2622803

Cheers,
D_Know_WD

Scott Thackrey · Oct 15, 2014

D_Know_WD :

So I tried using the command lines and that didnt work. So then I just let windows recovery repair itself and that worked fine. Ran the valley benchmark which increased the score from 1232 to 1865. Quite a difference just by replacing the HDD. Thanks again for your help.

All the best,
Scott.

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How to transfer all installed programs from an old to a new HDD

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