Two hard drives to one?

[leatherlips]

I have an Asus Laptop (U36S) that has a SSD with the OS installed (and some programs). I also connect via USB3 an external drive (500GB). This external drive is always connected because I found the SSD too small to hold all the programs I wanted on the system. (It also holds data).

I'm tired of having this external drive plugged in all the time, so I'm considering purchasing a 750GB drive to use with the laptop instead of the SSD/External combo.

My question is if it's possible to take the two drives as they exist and "ghost" them onto the one new drive (two partitions) so I don't have to reinstall everything on the two drives?

If so, what would be the best way to do that? I don't own a "ghost" program yet, but could purchase one to use if this is possible.

Thanks!!

 

[calmstateofmind]

When you ghost a drive it allows for the OS and all installed programs, as well as user saved data, to be copied in their entirety over to the other harddrive.

This will take care of everything:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/

 

[leatherlips]

Thanks for the info.
So, if I have two drives (one in the laptop, and one external) I would run this program to copy an image to a third external (usb)drive? or directly to the new drive I intend on installing to into the laptop? The new drive would need to be partitioned to act like two drives (I'm assuming), and does that happen before I "mirror" the first drive (I'm thinking the first drive would the the one I am copying with the OS on it).? or do I do the Mirror to the new drive, install it and then add another partition(drive letter) and do the mirror of the 2nd (external) drive.
I assume I would use a usb case for the new drive to get it copied in the first place?

 

[calmstateofmind]

You can ghost the SSD directly to the other drive. If you want two partitions, first ghost the contents from the SSD, then go into Windows and make a second partition on that drive (the new one). Then just copy everything from your external to that second partition; you don't need to ghost that content.