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Replace windows primary hard disk without reinstall?

Replace windows primary hard disk without reinstall?

The "official" way to upgrade the primary hard disk of a Windows machine seems to be to install the new drive, install windows, install backup software, then do a restore from backup of the previous system.

Asked by: Guest | Views: 235
Total answers/comments: 1
Guest [Entry]

"Use your favourite imaging software like Ghost Enterprise Suite or whatnot, boot it from a disc or something. Clonezilla should do it I guess though I haven't tried its disk cloning abilities.

Have both the old and the new disk plugged in, clone the old one to the new one using a disk to disk clone (not partition). In this process you can normally resize the partitions to fit the new disk size in whatever way you want.

Shut down, remove the old disk, move the new disk to the same controller port as the old one for good measure and boot the machine.

It would be wierd if this didn't work - like the disk imaging software not really doing its job or something. As long as the disk uses the same controller there shouldn't be any problems at all."