Adding a new system hard drive question.

1,637 Views | 24 Replies | Last: 8 yr ago by Eliminatus
76Ag
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AG
I have a gaming PC I built a few years ago. It runs on an I-7 processor with 12 Gigs of ram and Windows 7 Professional. It has two Radeon video cards crosssfired. I have a terabyte HD for storage that spins at 7500 rpm and a system HD that is at 10,000 rpm. I think it's at 164 gig but I don't remember for sure.

Anyway, try as I could to prevent it the system drive is almost full. I have an SSD of the same approximate size that I never installed because I didn't trust the process. Can I just purchase another, larger similar HD and install it and have the system boot from that one and just use my Windows 7 CD to install on the new HD? The mother board will certainly support this and the case has room for about four more HDs.

If anyone has an alternate solution I would love to get some advice. Will this cause broken links that I will have to clean up? I know that some or most of you help me out with this.
Cloud
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Do you have a large external drive handy that you're not using? You can use windows 7's built in backup to create a system image on the external drive, then boot from that drive, and then choose to restore that system image to your new bigger drive.
76Ag
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Unfortunately no. This whole issue make me nervous because I really like my PC and don't want to screw it up.
aggieforester05
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I've had great luck with the Samsung hard drive cloning software. I used it on both of my personal computers with zero issues.
stridulent
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The Windows 7 drive cloning software works great as well. Type "Backup and Restore" in the Start Menu search bar, open it, then click "Create a system image" on the left side.
UmustBKidding
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Have used Clonezilla and had no issues. Deals with multiple file system types. My go to replacement for norton ghost.
76Ag
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So, can I install a 250 gig SSD and copy my system to it and then have my Pc start booting from that one? That sounds almost too easy.
Eliminatus
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I'm doing this now. If things go wonky you need to ensure that your BIOS is reading the new drive as the boot and not a secondary. Also need to ensure your new drive is partitioned to take advantage of all the new space.
Eliminatus
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dear god this is a nightmare. I have been at this for 4 hours now. My issue is creating a system recovery disk. When I built my PC years ago I opted out of a writable optical drive as I had no need of one. Fast forward 5 years and now I do apparently. I lost my original disk years ago for win7. I have tried 4 different usb boot drives now and none of them have worked. Now I am going to try the ISO image burn path and see if that works. I dont even know what that is. I feel like crying. I have built and upgraded my PC multiple times to include the motherboard but this software issue of simply trying to upgrade my HDD to a better one has me frustrated to tears. There is a lot of different ways apparently but my first 5 have all failed.
Eliminatus
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Ok I stopped trying to be all guru and am now using cloning software. Macrium to be exact. Took me a few minutes to figure out the UI, but think I got it. Cloning now as I sit here. Then create recovery media on USB and then unplug old HDD and try to boot with fingers crossed. If this fails I'm giving up for the day. Tears and beers will be in order. If it works I will lament all the time wasted trying to do all sorts of stupid crap and not just using dedicated cloning software to begin with.
chigger
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I have literally never created a system recovery disk. At least for a desktop. Are you trying to create a Windows 7 boot USB? I cant tell exactly what stage you are at.

The cloning may work fine, but if not, I think Microsoft has a boot USB utility.

Also, I also HIGHLY recommend disconnecting all hard drives you do not want erased when doing a fresh instal if you go that routel. Install Windows and then reconnect them when its done. Nothing like wiping your data because you chose the wrong drive :/
Eliminatus
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AG
Clone has filed twice now. It keeps converting the new drive( a 4TB) in an MBR drive. Ill format and convert to GPT and confirm it is GPT before cloning process. Then when clone is complete it reads as an MBR and I can't access the other 2 TB of disk space. I always considered myself sorta tech savvy but anything relating to hard drives and the software to use them throws me off bad and makes me feel stupid. Trying one more time.

Chigger the problem I was having earlier was I successfully created a system image on another internal hard drive via WIndows backup and restore and I figured I could just restore the image to the new drive I had. However Windows could not find that drive to restore. I could see it when I create a system image (it's my Y: drive) but when I would go to restore Windows failed to read Y: at all. And that drive is the only thing I have that has enough space on it to hold that image, nearly a TB. Why I'm upgrading.

So then I figured I could just disconnect my main C: and then boot up and restore from the Y: to the new drive. Doesn't work that way apparently. I have no boot and no system repair disk to start boot. At this point I am working completely clueless. Just making assumptions on what would work with no real research. Well the research begins in earnest at this point. Go to all sorts of trouble trying to make USB boot utility. All attempts fail. PC will not boot. So I ixnay all that and start over at square one with cloning software.

Using Macrium Reflect but as stated earlier it keeps converting to MBR when I need GPT. I even ensure that the disk being cloned uses the destination disk geometry. Still not working. Keeps making it into MBR. I am trying one more time as I type this with slightly different parameters with fingers crossed. Hoping it works this time and hoping even more that the next step, successfully booting from the cloned drive with the system repair USB utility I made through Macrium works.

Even with supposedly user friendly software I am finding a way to muck this up.
Ark03
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I don't think a cloned install of Windows will ever be as clean or run as well as a fresh install - not to mention the innumerable benefits of doing a wipe and reinstall of your boot drive every once and a while.

Why wouldn't you just install a fresh copy of your OS on the new drive, then reinstall software and copy over any files you need? Am I missing something here? It takes a bit of time, but you will end up with a much better result.
chigger
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Eliminatus, how many physical hard drives are in your machine? One? It sounds like y: could be a partition on your drive.

Also what is the new drive?
Eliminatus
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Welp....that didnt work. New clone AGAIN converted my new drive to MBR when I had formatted it to GPT. So the clone itself worked....but I cannot seem to find a way to stop it from making it MBR and therefore losing 2 TBs of drive space. I have tried every option I can think of now using Macrium. The only way to turn an MBR back to GPT is to reformat...which I have done twice already. So frustrated.
chigger
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AG
And do you know what your motherboard is?
Eliminatus
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quote:
Eliminatus, how many physical hard drives are in your machine? One? It sounds like y: could be a partition on your drive.

Also what is the new drive?
I have three actual physical internal HDDs in my PC right now. A 1TB main C: boot drive and then two bulk 2 TB HDDs I added coupla years ago. They are slower however at 5900 RPMs so not ideal for a primary drive. My Y drive is one of these extra HDDs.

I am trying to replace my main primary drive with an upgraded 4TB drive I got coupla days ago. The drive works just fine and is recognized by my PC no problem. My issue is swapping everything over and making it my primary drive.
Eliminatus
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quote:
And do you know what your motherboard is?

I wonder if that may be the issue. It iIS 4 years old now and I am now wondering if it can even read GPT geometry disks. Ughhh...more interwebbing is now in sight. I just wish I could plug it in, push a few buttons, have it work, then go about my merry way. This is turning into a multiday headache.


: And then there is this. "Cloning is often confused with imaging. The process is identical but instead of storing data to a file, it replicates volume contents and disk structures to an alternative device. When the cloning process is complete, the target disk is identical to the original and contains a duplicate of all volumes, files, operating systems and applications.".

My god.....i have been doing this wrong it looks like. I should be using a system image instead of a direct clone, which I have been doing...

I am my own worst enemy.

:So I managed to successfully make a system image and restore it to my new drive. It works. I cannot for the life of me figure out how to NOT auto convert it to MBR partition type when this happens. I ensure that it is GPT before I restore. Alas, it is an MBR everytime I finish. I am assuming the restore image makes it an exact copy of what it was before. To include partition type which goes against what I've read online but I am so done with this for now. I can just stare wistfully at the unallocated 1.6 TB of disk space I can do nothing about. I can't even make it another partition or simple volume. That space is completely cut off from me and I cannot figure this out. Google has me goign around in circles or looking at forum pages from 2006. I did gain 1 additional TB over what I had before however so there is that. I have been at this for about 36 hours now and I am just tired of the whole thing. I have now cloned/ system image and restored 6 times. Each time taking about 4 hours. Plus hours of scrolling through forums and help pages.

The only thing I can think of to do now is to segregate Windows into a separate boot partition alone and just use the rest as bulk storage. But that sounds like a job for another time. I can build these things like a champ but the software and networking side drives me to tears.

I guess the next step would just to buy a small SSD and build that into my boot drive. But that would require another HDD purchase. Was trying to keep those low cost. There HAS to be a way to do it with what I ahve but I am just not seeing the path I need to take no matter how hard I search.
76Ag
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Well I'm learning a lot but getting discouraged... What would happen if I install the SSD, have the system boot to it and use my Win 7 disk to install the O/S on it?
mickeyrig06sq3
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quote:
Well I'm learning a lot but getting discouraged... What would happen if I install the SSD, have the system boot to it and use my Win 7 disk to install the O/S on it?


It's your new OS drive, as long as your BIOS points to it. Just make sure any of your important docs from the old drive aren't in your my documents folder or user specific folders. You can run into some weird issues due to permissions when you try to go back in there to open files.
Eliminatus
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I finally gave up. There are multiple paths to do what I wanted but I stonewalled at every one. All of this compounded by the fact that I lost my install disk of win7 years ago. And since I bought an OEM version of windows it was too bad so sad with microsoft. Which I actually kinda understand. I'm not mad at them. So it looks like I'll have to pay for a retail version of win7 again or win8 if I want to do a fresh install the legal way. I may or may not know of how to it a not so quite legal way but that in itself can be a headache. Maybe not so much of one that I already got. The lengths and depths of the Darkseid of the Internet I went....plus the amount of different things I was trying was getting stupid. When you are in CPrompt and manually writing in partitions of hard drives it's gone too far IMO. How windows doesn't have their own personal software suite to deal with the issue of MBR vs. GPT drives is bewildering to me. This is a huge problem these days as the older computers with MBR are being upgraded to GPT. And NONE of the third party software worked for me. Macrium, Samsung, clonezilla, EaseUS, etc...none of them could get me what I wanted. I just want to convert my system MBR to a system GPT. Through any means possible. That's all.

So now my plan is to just pretend that new drive isn't there, and wait till the free full release of win 10 which I should be getting for free.
Eliminatus
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AG
So after trying to build a Windows 10 system drive and again running into a UEFI/BIOS issue I did some deep searching. Then I went back and did some not so deep searching. I think my problem had been glaring at me from day one and I was too dumb to see it properly. And even worse I made wrong assumptions about it.

Turns out my motherboard is not native UEFI compatible. I had seen this pop up multiple times in my quest but since there was an EFI option in my BIOS I thought it was good to go. And it's not apparently. So now I can flash my bios to a newer experimental upgrade that has a hybrid EFI build in it, which is not true UEFI I think....or just say **** it and go ahead and replace the whole thing. It is getting long in the tooth and my USB and SATA options are currently maxed out on it. It was cutting edge when I got it.....5 years ago.

My quest to put in a 4TB HDD may end up turning into a complete rebuild.

Since my initial build I have upgraded my graphics and CPU but everything else is original. I am thinking mobo and PSU are the next to be replaced.

I can flash in a new BIOS build for it and hope that works or just replace the whole damn thing. I see pros and cons to both. Mainly time, risk and money.

Decisions, decisions....
Tailgate88
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Honestly, considering the price of SSDs these days, I will never own/build another PC that doesn't have one for the boot drive.
mickeyrig06sq3
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quote:
Honestly, considering the price of SSDs these days, I will never own/build another PC that doesn't have one for the boot drive.

+1

Just get a 120 or 250GB for your boot drive and programs, then store all of your junk on the 4TB drive.
Eliminatus
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quote:
Honestly, considering the price of SSDs these days, I will never own/build another PC that doesn't have one for the boot drive.


I have thought much about it but in my case I just don't see the need. I'm that guy that turns off his PC maybe once every coupla weeks. And when I do turn it back on I am usually occupied with doing something else so the 2-3 minute boot up time isn't detrimental.

Plus I only have 4 HDD slots. Two are my bulk slow HDD I keep in RAID. They new one and my old one I am hoping to put a Linux build on to play and experiment with.
Eliminatus
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AG
Ok after a few more hours of searching I have more or less concluded that my MOBO is a BIOS board. I was thinking that flashing it to the latest BIOS would make it semi UEFI since it added UEFI support. After reading MANY conflicting forums I have concluded that Gigabytes Hybrid EFI mobos are NOT true UEFI. They just have software workarounds. I am going to stop there and say this has been my problem all along.

For those following along this has been one of the worst nightmares I have had involving PCs.

So now I am going to bite the bullet and do what yall have been suggesting. Get a small SDD to make a dedicated Boot drive and use the 4TB as my main storage. Oh and replace my mobo with a new one. Ironically they make the exact same model I have(which is still kinda top end somehow for AMD) but a newer revision. The 3.0s and higher all come up with true UEFI built in. I'm rocking a 1.1 with a tricked out BIOS that can read some UEFI stuff....but in fact remains a BIOS system at the end of the day.
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