Best Way to Move Vista?

I need to move Vista from the 80 GB hard drive it is on to a 100 GB hard drive. I have two hard drives in enclosures. The problem is that the 100 GB hard drive has XP on it, and I don't want to lost XP just yet, I want to be sure that I have everything from it I need and that everything in Vista is working. Whats the best way to do this? On XP I have Ghost, and on Vista I have the backup center. Should I just backup both up and keep XP as a backup? Will Vista freak out because of the new hard drive? Thanks.

 

Well, aside from getting another hard drive I'm not too sure about how to do this.

But the one thing I do know: unless you have Vista Business or Vista Ultimate, the backup utility that comes with Vista does not back up the entire system. It backs up what it thinks are your personal files, and that's it.

 

Hum.

Well, outpost usually sells new versions of Norton all the time. Ghost, firewall, the works... Seperately they sell for $200+ but sometimes outpost/frys sells it for $80 with a $80 rebate.

You could...

Get the thing, and the rebate...

Use ghost...

Sell the rest...

And make about $100 on the side.

I dunno, throwing crazyness out here...

 

I don't know if I made this completely clear, sorry. I have Vista Business, so I have the full backup center. I have the 80 GB hard drive with Vista on it, the 100 GB hard drive with XP on it, an 80 GB hard drive to backup to, and a 160 GB hard drive to backup to (that isn't with me right now, so I left it out earlier). I planned to just use Ghost on XP to backup XP, and leave it as a backup, then move Vista to the 100 GB hard drive. Does anyone have any better ideas?

 

You want to put Xp on the 80 gig hdd and Vista on the 100 gig?

Only way is to either get another hdd and copy to them, or reformat one and copy the other.

Two hdds, two OS's, you'd have a problem either way.

I would personally wait until your 160 gig hdd returns and copy xp to it, then copy vista to the 100 gig, then copy xp to the 80.

Only way to do this.

BTW, seagate, maxtor, wd... they all have utilities as well for moving files.

 

A)

1. Put XP HD as slave and transfer everything to Vista
2. Format XP HD
3. Install Vista on it
4. Put Vista Backed-up HD as slave in the new Vista and transfer everything
5. Format old Vista HD
6. Install XP in old Vista HD
7. Put XP as slave in new Vista and transfer old XP files to new XP
8. Delete old XP files from new Vista

this would be easier with a USB converter case (those lil boxes that make the HD as a external thru USB) although is kinda slow.

Or, get partition magic 8, create a logic partition big enough to save all your info, put your info in the new partition, format the primary partition, make sure you do it right and choose the right partition type (NFTS in most cases)
put your (either XP or Vista) installation disk, finish the installation and xfer all files from the logic partition to the primary partition (if you want) and resize (using partition magic) your HD to the original size, you can keep the logic parition as a backup in the same HD, if you get a virus it'll infect C: and not your logic partition, unless you saved something infected in the logic partition, this way you can install windows as many times as you want without backing up everything to other storage devices, all in one HD, but pay attention to what you're doing!

Partition Magic is really easy to use.... anyway, hope this helps! have a nice day,

 

Yeah, except my way would be easier and he wouldn't lose data

Good suggestions though

 

he wont lose data with my method either... if he's not watching TV and formatting HD's he'll be fine...

 

Oh wait, I see what you did thar...

But how would that work with only two hdds?

 

I have three HD's here. 2 80's and a single 100. I am mostly concerned about moving Vista, I can deal with XP, I have done it literally dozens of times. Any more suggestions.

 

Caleb, give it a try. I know it will work with XP, but I don't know how much WGA will affect Vista. If I understand correctly, there's no risk of you losing any data as everything will either be backed up (XP) or still on their original HDD's (Vista) when you make the transfer to the 100GB HDD.

 

did you even read my post?

 

I stopped reading when you said install Vista. That makes no sense. It would be a useless waste of time. I backed up and restored last night in less than the install time. Nice try though.

 

you want to end up with a dual boot with vista and xp on the same disk right?
now you have 2 disks one with vista and one with XP and when you want to change you do a hardware change and put in the other disk?
make the partition on the XP disk smaller, back up vista and copy behind the xp disk. Now you still have a problem with the bootloaders.
After copying the partition start from the Vista DVD and tell it to fix vista. This will fix the Vista boot manager. You still wont have dual boot. here is a link of how to do it. http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp#restoring

 

you can still dual boot by switching to other drive in bios.

 

Not if both systems are on the same hard disk in different partitions. Need a boot manager for that. Vista boot manager works fine.

 

Well, I am done with this, the Vista backup worked just fine, in fact it was faster than I expected. I don't want a dual boot, I just wanted Vista on the larger drive. Thanks anyways.