Adding hard drive to a PC.....

[Speeddog]

Currently have an 80 Gb drive.

Partitioned:
C - 9 Gb
D - 32 Gb
E - 20 Gb
F - 20 Gb

The E drive is nearly full, would like to 'move' it to a yet-to-be-added drive.

Recommendations?

[zooom]

Maxtor external drive!

[Veloce-Fino]

How did you get 81 GB out of an 80gb drive? usually you lose a Gb or 2 after formatting?

After you add the drive go into administrative tools/disk managament.

Create the new 20Gb partition and transfer the data. Unless things have changed recently, it's not possible to "move" an entire partition, just the contents.

Also, is this your boot drive containing your OS? having such small partitions that are no doubt mostly full leaves your OS very little room to "work" more free space on the partition containing the OS would probably increase speed.

[Monster Dave]

First question - Do you have programs installed on partition E?

[Speeddog]

Sorry, rounding error on the various partitions makes 'em add up to more than 80.  

Yes, E contains my main OS, which is indeed very unhappy about working in such cramped quarters.
I've moved as much stuff as I can out of it....but I've tired of that game.
That's the motivation for adding a drive.

Forgot to mention that this is a desktop unit, so an internal drive isn't a problem.

Also it's a dual-boot, usually running Win XP, but also running NT as necessary.

[Veloce-Fino]

If the E drive contains your OS then you cannot move it. The best options would be to install the new HDD and install the OS fresh on that drive.

Any programs installed onto the E drive will need to be re-installed. Programs installed onto the other partitions will most likely need to be re-installed as well in order to run on the fresh install.

This would be easier as you will still have access to the old E drive to transfer files after the fresh install.

After all is done, wipe the E partition or completely remove it and add to the primary partition on the old drive.

Which partitions contain the OS's?

E and...?

[Monster Dave]

If the E drive contains your OS then you cannot move it. The best options would be to install the new HDD and install the OS fresh on that drive.

Any programs installed onto the E drive will need to be re-installed. Programs installed onto the other partitions will most likely need to be re-installed as well in order to run on the fresh install.

This would be easier as you will still have access to the old E drive to transfer files after the fresh install.

After all is done, wipe the E partition or completely remove it and add to the primary partition on the old drive.

That's not entirely true. You could use some imaging software, image that drive partition, move it to a larger partitioned space without any (OS) problems.

For that matter you could take a new drive, partition it now before you make any changes, then lay the images of the old partitions on the new drive space (partitioned already to the increased size that you want) and you'd be all set and have a second 80GB drive to work with as extra space.

[Veloce-Fino]

That's not entirely true. You could use some imaging software image that drive, move it to a larger partitioned space without any (OS) problems.

True, but if he already has a poorly running, congested OS it would make much more sense to re-install. Imaging the drive and duplicating it on the new HDD would bring all the old problems along for the ride.

[Monster Dave]

Not if you put the OS image on a larger partitioned space. I do that all the time where I work. In fact I just used Macrium and moved a web server doing exactly that because the OS was out of space.

[Veloce-Fino]

Not if you put the OS image on a larger partitioned space. We do that all the time where I work.

True, BUT! all of the registry errors and artifacts from use will still be there. Executing ANY type of program creates registry entries. After a few months/years of this your PC will slow down. You can use an application like Ccleaner to clean out these entries but if you don't know what you're doing it can cause bigger problems.

A fresh install is ALWAYS faster than an existing, well used, install.

* a web server is not accessed/used the same as a "user" machine. If we were dealing with a website hosting server I would also recommend imaging/duplicating.

Unless he already has the knowledge, re-install would be more simple/effective then imaging.

[Speeddog]

If the 'imaging' routine is feasible, I'd *really* like to do it that way.

I intended to put the contents of E into a larger partition.

[Monster Dave]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing with you - I'm in favor of what you're saying. I've always divided my OS and my files between a partition so that when I wipe my OS from my system, it doesn't impact my files. Wipe and reinstall the OS is easy, it's just that his setup is sort of curiously complex.

[Monster Dave]

If the 'imaging' routine is feasible, I'd *really* like to do it that way.

I intended to put the contents of E into a larger partition.

The easiest software (most user friendly) is called Acronis and you can find it at Best Buy for about $39.99.

We use it here at work and I really am in favor of it. It's got a nice GUI and is really simple to take the image and the reapply it - not to mention that you can take an image of any PC and install it on any other system with any other hardware configuration and it works flawlessly.

[Veloce-Fino]

Don't get me wrong - I'm not arguing with you - I'm in favor of what you're saying. I've always divided my OS and my files between a partition so that when I wipe my OS from my system, it doesn't impact my files. Wipe and reinstall the OS is easy, it's just that his setup is sort of curiously complex.

I'm not arguing either, more point/counter point  

Definitely more complex..

Someone went partition crazy.

Do whatever method pleases you, separating OS from personal files is a step in the right direction no matter how you do it. File Management!!

[Monster Dave]

I'm not arguing either, more point/counter point