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Migrating a 300GB to a 2TB.
KiTA
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So my new 2TB HDD should be here tomorrow.
I was planning on booting to GParted to copy HDD 1 to HDD 2, then retire HDD1 for the time being.
Questions:
1. How long would it take to copy 300GB from 1 HDD to another? Both will be on SATA connectors, nothing external. This also counts as my work computer, so I have to have the machine back up in about... 14-16 hours.
2. I hear I have to format the 2TB in a special way if I'm not going to split up the partitions. Will Gparted handle that type of partitioning? (It starts with a g.)
3. Will I have any issues if I have copied a partition wholesale to a different partition type?
I know (reading this article) that if I outright resize the partition with gparted I'll have to use Startup Repair to fix it, will I have to do Startup Repair if I just copy one partition to the other HDD?
My plan was to copy the Dell Diag partition, the Dell Resource partition, and then the NTFS partition -- basically ghosting one drive to the other, then hopefully using the Win7 built in stuff to resize the NTFS partition to fill the entire drive.
I was planning on booting to GParted to copy HDD 1 to HDD 2, then retire HDD1 for the time being.
Questions:
1. How long would it take to copy 300GB from 1 HDD to another? Both will be on SATA connectors, nothing external. This also counts as my work computer, so I have to have the machine back up in about... 14-16 hours.
2. I hear I have to format the 2TB in a special way if I'm not going to split up the partitions. Will Gparted handle that type of partitioning? (It starts with a g.)
3. Will I have any issues if I have copied a partition wholesale to a different partition type?
I know (reading this article) that if I outright resize the partition with gparted I'll have to use Startup Repair to fix it, will I have to do Startup Repair if I just copy one partition to the other HDD?
My plan was to copy the Dell Diag partition, the Dell Resource partition, and then the NTFS partition -- basically ghosting one drive to the other, then hopefully using the Win7 built in stuff to resize the NTFS partition to fill the entire drive.
KiTA on
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How long it will take to migrate that data over a (presumably) 3 Gbps/384 MBps connection will vary. You won't saturate the pipe, which includes more than just the SATA array controller(s) involved, so using a straight capacity planning equation won't work. I've moved 300 GB of data from local 3Gbps arrays to SANs/storage arrays via 1 Gbps HBAs in about 1.5 hours many times (migrating local server storage to a SAN). So I'm going to tentatively guesstimate it will take you anywhere between 1 and 3 hours - possibly less (I've never done this on desktop hardware, but rather compartmentalized PCI-X and PCI Express server architectures).
From the sounds of it, any imaging solution will do. You can always use diskpart to expand the partition later - however, it won't work on a system disk or one with a page file. So first, capture an image of your existing disk then dump it onto the new one. Then, with both connected, boot to your original disk and mount the new one. Use diskpart to expand the volume. Then just remove the old disk and boot with the new one.
Or, just get an imaging solution that will dump the data then expand the partition for you. Anything that promises "bare metal" transfer. You can get a lot of commercial grade stuff on trial that works exquisitely.
Took exactly 8 hours for the final partition (around 300 gigs).
30MB Diag partition didn't want to copy. The rest was no problem.
OS does not boot. Booted from the 7 Ult x64 CD, did startup repair (found a bad partition table), did startup repair (found NTFS corruption), did startup repair (found nothing). All this was normal stuff that I was expecting from the GParted docs.
But it doesn't boot after that point. Starts up but fails immediately with a flashing cursor in the upper left corner.
If it was Windows XP, I'd run BootCFG /Rebuild to fix the boot.ini file, but that doesn't appear to be the problem (the first Startup Repair fixed that).
I moved back to the original HDD for the time being, which is now running a bit slow now.
Thoughts:
The 30MB partition didn't copy very nicely. I had to copy it telling it not to round to the nearest cyl otherwise it said the partition was too small to hold the original partition. Finally it worked, but gave a warning that Windows wouldn't like the partition very much.
Ideas:
Delete the other 2 partitions, migrate the NTFS partition to the top of the drive. I'd rather keep the 30MB Diagnostic partition if possible.
Wipe the drive, copy the partition over again. This time use Windows Diskpart to expand the partition, not GParted.
Run GPTGen (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gptgen/) on the HDD, if needed.
Format, install a fresh copy of 7
Format, install a fresh copy of 7... then delete that partition and copy the partition on top of it.
http://gparted-forum.surf4.info/viewtopic.php?id=13529
So there's a chance that my partition is set to hidden, or somesuch, which is causing Win7 to crap itself.
So in theory, my best bet is to copy the HDD over and let Windows resize instead of GParted. Maybe.
We'll give that a try at lunch or after work. I'd hate to have to copy it over again, but that might be what happens.
As for the speed... I really really need to replace the case. It's an old Inspiron 531 from back when I was working for Dell and had a crushing lack of soul. I fear the lack of airflow and general cramped-ness of it is causing heat problems, especially with drives.
Deleted the 39 meg partition out of desperation.
Finally what fixed it was booting into windows with the 2nd HDD installed, running chkdsk and setting the partition as active. I donno if I just forgot that step or if it was supposed to automatically do it, but, whatever. The biggest problem I'll have tonight will be either fixing the deleted 39 meg partition or moving the 1.99tb partition up 39 megs.