Shifting windows: possible? [Archive]

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sugarcube

08-11-2006, 10:58

i have windows on my sata 160gb drive atm and i want it on the 80gb ide although i dont really want to have to reinstall and faff about with all my programs and setting again.
is it possible to simply dump it across seeing as the drive letters would be stayng the same or would it throw a paddy being on a different hardware adderss?
my setup is as follows on the 160 GB drive
c:\ windows system files
d:\ windows program files
e:\ documents & settings
f:\ media mp3 video etc
etc

the 80gb drive is effectivly empty as it held a version of debian which i screwed up big time :hihi: doesnt matter as /home had nothing important on it anyway and its a good opportunity to give linux the faster drive anyhow.

any thoughts and suggestions welcome.

im probably going to give it a try regardless, im just curious as to anyone elses experience here.

oh, one more thing, powerquest partition manager wont recognise the 80gb drive anymore, saying its *bad* :confused: and that paragon partition manager ftp download doesnt work for me. even shoved the url into a ftp client and IE. ah well knopix or puppy linux time methinks.......

richard

08-11-2006, 12:44

There is something which could make it fail:

When the computer starts up it looks for a master boot record, "mbr", which will be present on the first drive but not the second. If you are putting linux on the system anyway then this should not be a problem. Otherwise it will be.

It would probably be best to copy the files whilst not actually running windows as well.

I don't know if it will work even with this sorted though. Let us know how you get on!

neeeeeeeeeek

08-11-2006, 12:52

You can do it with programs such as partition magic but it's not worththe risk or the agro im my opinion. If you need to buy a copy of the s/w then you might as well just buy another drive!

I have an 80gb one available for £25 if darkman decides not to buy it but I said I would save it for him.

sugarcube

08-11-2006, 13:05

i found the problem with partition magic, it doesnt recognise reiser file system, only ext1/2 and swap.
knopix and qtparted :thumbsup:

cheers neeek, but ive enough storage atm. just got things in the wrong place thats all.

sugarcube

08-11-2006, 14:58

It would probably be best to copy the files whilst not actually running windows as well.

I don't know if it will work even with this sorted though. Let us know how you get on!

quite right, windows doesnt let you copy certain system files while theyre being used. there are a few programs for copying locked files but none of them seem to seve my needs ie only move command and no copy :(

to add to my woes, the ver of knopix i got doesnt support sata and ubuntu livecd wont let me mount and access the drives as i want.
im temped to use win32 port of DD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_%28Unix%29) but im scared of trashing all my data :shakes:

maybe a reinstall is the only easy option?

richard

08-11-2006, 15:24

Reinstall may well be the easy option, but it does seem strange that you can't mount the filesystems in ubuntu. Any more info on this?

sugarcube

08-11-2006, 16:15

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo mkdir /media/sda-windows
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ cd /media/sda-windows/
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ dir
#nothing mounted
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ sudo mount /dev/sda1 media/sda-windows/
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ dir

# still comes up with nothing

ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ sudo mount -l /dev/sda1 /media/sda-windows/ mount: /dev/sda1 already mounted or /media/sda-windows/ busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sda1 is mounted on /media/sda-windows
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ dir
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ ls
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$

im probably missing something really simple and very easy to sort, :help: lol

ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$ mount
unionfs on / type unionfs (rw)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
/sys on /sys type sysfs (rw)
varrun on /var/run type tmpfs (rw)
varlock on /var/lock type tmpfs (rw)
procbususb on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
udev on /dev type tmpfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620)
devshm on /dev/shm type tmpfs (rw)
lrm on /lib/modules/2.6.15-23-386/volatile type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw,nosuid,nodev)
/dev/sda1 on /media/sda-windows type ntfs (rw)
ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/sda-windows$

Ghozer

08-11-2006, 17:47

You could just install windows on the target drive, then boot to the windows recovery console (from the XP CD, = a dosmode console) then use the various tools such as fixmbr, fdisk /mbr and bootfix, (type help at the prompt, theyer listed in there) then copy over your windows installation to the drive you just installed a 'fresh' windows on (thus over-writing the new fresh files with your old ones) - then use the mbr tools again

i have successfully done this, and it worked fine and the PC/installation has been running for 6 months so far, without any issues..

sugarcube

08-11-2006, 18:12

so how did you manage to either copy the files either from the original installation to the new (or visa versa) without the locked/protected file issue?

oh, just realised you could copy from the prompt but that would take an age wouldnt it?

cheers for replies, summat t think about while in t pub.

richard

08-11-2006, 18:19

fnkysknky

08-11-2006, 18:40

You could download BartPE - make yourself a bootable Windows environment with it (very handy to have anyway, a Windows LiveCD) and then use that to partition the drive (Disk Management from compmgmt.msc) and use xcopy from a command line to transfer the entire disk contents across. Then boot from the original XP disc to a repair prompt and 'fixmbr' to replace the MBR.

BartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

fnkysknky

08-11-2006, 18:44

The above is presuming you are using NTFS - if it's FAT32 then try an old DOS boot disk.

sugarcube

09-11-2006, 16:22

updater:
i should have thought about this a bit more before diving straight in :rolleyes:

linux.... what a dunce, theres no ntfs-3g on any live CDs' yet!!!! no ntfs write support means no copying! doh!!!

BartPE: no good as the version of windows i have is not accepted by the builder.

Windows installer CD rescue console: i should have expected this from MSucks... no xcopy and copy c:\*.* d:\ returns cannot copy wildcards or whole directories.

so im using driveimage xml (http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm) to do the same as DD but with a nice gui and multiple *are you sures'* to be safe :hihi: will give it a boot n see what happens.

sugarcube

10-11-2006, 10:09

well, im learning a lot about the peculiarities of windows.
ive copied the image across and booted from the copy and am running from it now actually, it works fine, until..... i try and simulate the removal of the original windows partition i copied from. when i unplug the sata drive it will load windows and get up to the point of bringing up the login screen and just hang there.
ive not fully understood the bootlog.txt but im fairly sure that its this (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/249321/) problem im having.

more updates later........

sugarcube

10-11-2006, 16:46

EGOR ITS ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

after a while trying different facilities like the ultimate boot disk etc etc, seeing if they had non windows based drive letter changing programs like assign, so i could change it all back if it went pear shaped and having no luck with any of them (sata drive recognition being the biggest hurdle) i decided to bite the bullet and just give it a go. if the worst happened i would reinstall windows on the ide and change back the sata drive to c: from there.
but no such problems, i changed the ide primary partition to c: and the 1st extended partition to d: and unplugged the sata drive (just to make sure nothing was being leetched across) and held my breath.....it works!

so yes, it IS possible to move a windows installation which is spead across multiple partitions across to a different physical drive in the same computer and have it pick up where you left off! bonus.

now to give linux the faster sata drive :)

thanks for all your posts, much appreciated :thumbsup:

GraZ

11-11-2006, 07:57

It's always good to dual boot, I personally want to have Win2000, WinXP, WinXP64 and Vista when it comes out. Although i'm not too sure why i want Vista, suppose the urge to click new buttons i creeping up on me.