Ghosting my C drive to a new drive

[dqtus]

Ok right now I have 3 HDs in my computer and I want to remove one. This is how my drives are broken down...

C: Has the OS, 75GB, IBM
D: I just formatted it, 120GB, WD
E: Storage drive, 250GB, Maxtor

Basically what I want to do is transfer everything from the C to the D and then remove the C drive and only have my current D and E. I would then rename them to be C and D and not have an E. I remember I tried something similar before but my D was recognized as D even though i removed the C drive entirely from the system. I am using windows xp btw. I do have Norton Ghost 2003 so can someone guide me through this and tell me what I have to do to successfully transfer the C to D with little trouble and being able to have my boot drive still be C. Oh and do I need to do any special sort of format for the D drive since it will be the boot drive eventually. I just made it a primary that's it. Thanks!

[808smokey]

The drive letters really don't matter.

1st - Transfer/ghost the C: to the D: thru NOrton ghost.

2nd - When that's done take the C: out of the computer.

3rd - change the jumper on the back of the D: drive to Master

4th Reboot the computer. It should now work just fine.

As far as "Formatting" it shouldn't need anything special done to it. Ghost should copy all the required files to properly boot.

[dqtus]

question, I just ghosted everything from the C to the D and I have like these norton ghost files on the D only. Do I need to restore them or something before I remove the C drive or else how does the D drive boot?

[tmaxwell2435]

I would recommend making a ghost boot disk and doing a drive copy to the new drive. Ghost will automatically expand the partition to the larger size. It sounds like you made a backup of your C drive and not a copy.

[housepig]

question, I just ghosted everything from the C to the D and I have like these norton ghost files on the D only. Do I need to restore them or something before I remove the C drive or else how does the D drive boot?

what you need to do:

- make a ghost image of your C: drive.
- run Ghost. select the image file you just made.
- tell Ghost you want to restore that image to your hard disk, and select drive D: instead of drive C:
- restore the image.

now re-jumper your D: drive as a master and take out your C: drive. D should be an exact copy of C.

[dqtus]

ahhh ok 1 problem, when i made the image i selected the whole c drive meaning disk 1 and I saved it onto my D drive. I'm assuming this copied all the boot stuff as well and I made a boot disk just in case. Anyways when i went to restore the image it wont let me because the image is stored on the D and I'm trying to restore it on the D. Should I have saved the image on the E drive and then restore it to the D?

[stiltman]

you need to copy the drive not image the drive

[housepig]

Should I have saved the image on the E drive and then restore it to the D?

correct - you can't restore an image to D if the image file is on D - you have to go from E to D, or from a cd-r or dvd-r of the image to D, etc.

[dqtus]

Should I have saved the image on the E drive and then restore it to the D?

correct - you can't restore an image to D if the image file is on D - you have to go from E to D, or from a cd-r or dvd-r of the image to D, etc.

ohhhh ok! I'll just delete the image then and make the copy of C to E and then restore it to D. thanks!

[stiltman]

why do you want to create an image from 1 drive to another drive the restore that image to a 3 drive?

why not just copy the c drive to d and be done?

instead of disk to image
do disk to disk

[bottle-necked]

[dqtus]

why do you want to create an image from 1 drive to another drive the restore that image to a 3 drive?

why not just copy the c drive to d and be done?

instead of disk to image
do disk to disk

oh so that works too? As long as all my files and OS files can get copied then I will do it. Since I want the D drive to get labeled C.