sugarcube Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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 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* 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....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neeeeeeeeeek Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sugarcube Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 i found the problem with partition magic, it doesnt recognise reiser file system, only ext1/2 and swap. knopix and qtparted cheers neeek, but ive enough storage atm. just got things in the wrong place thats all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sugarcube Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 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 but im scared of trashing all my data maybe a reinstall is the only easy option? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sugarcube Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 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, 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$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghozer Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sugarcube Posted November 8, 2006 Author Share Posted November 8, 2006 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. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
richard Posted November 8, 2006 Share Posted November 8, 2006 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, 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$ Interesting side effect of a mount is a new inode. I have had this before. You just need to re enter the directory after the mount, or not enter until after the mount. Try:- ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/$ sudo mount -l /dev/sda1 /media/sda-windows/ ubuntu@ubuntu:/media/$ ls sda-windows Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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