Easy way to switch windows to a new hard drive?

wuzupmcs68

Solid State Member
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I currently have windows vista installed on a 150GB raptor with about 120GB of progams, etc. installed on it. I recently bought a 36GB raptor HDD and was wanting to put my windows installation on that drive and leave all my programs, etc. on the larger drive.

My question is, is there an easy way to do this besides basically wiping the drive, installing windows on the small drive and reinstalling all the programs on the large drive?

Because if that is the only way, I'm not sure that it's worth it.

Any help is appreciated.

And sorry I just read the sticky.

My build:
Vista 32bit, Asus Mobo, AMD X2 +4200, 4GB Corsair XMS, Ati 1900xt 512mb graphics card, Creative X-fi sound card
 
well, I don't know if its a simple copy paste operation, but I would recommend installing windows on the raptor, then backing up stuff to the raptor and then reformat the big drive and install everything. I would also change the registry to want to install programs to the second drive by default. I don't remember how that is done but I know it can be done.
 
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do that. You would have to install Vista on the new drive and then reinstall your apps and programs.

Rubber314Chicken's suggestion is the way to go. Install Vista on the new drive, back up your needed files, pics, etc to it. Then reformat the old drive and reinstall the programs.

Yup, it is a PITA. :D
 
Alright well I guess I'll have some deciding to do on whether I want to go through the trouble.

Thanks guys.
 
I used to have XP and Vista on seperate drives, with games on my XP drive. I had Vista open and my friend didn't feel like restarting the computer to play CSS so he went to my other drive and made a shortcut of the .exe. He was playing with no problems. I'm not sure that this would work with all your programs but it is worth a try. Just install windows on your 36gb drive and boot up that and try executing files on the other drive. If it doesn't work you can always erase the 36gb and be back at where you started.
 
I'll have to check out that Acronis program. I wonder if it can migrate only the windows operating files and leave program files?

On that note does anyone have any ideas on how to uninstall windows while leaving program files?
 
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do that. You would have to install Vista on the new drive and then reinstall your apps and programs.

Rubber314Chicken's suggestion is the way to go. Install Vista on the new drive, back up your needed files, pics, etc to it. Then reformat the old drive and reinstall the programs.

Yup, it is a PITA. :D

find a friend with an external hard drive and backup all your stuff, then just reinstall like everyone is saying...

I keep all my programs' install files in a folder called "setup" on 2 of my backup drives (each folder is an exact copy of the other and they take up 25GBs, but it's worth it to have the backup folder just in case something happens to the original) it's so much easier to have everything in one place after a reinstall/clean install of the OS...
 
Yeah, my only problem is I'm a gamer and I have about 120GB of program files to reinstall. It would take me a week straight to reinstall all of my games and regular programs. Not to mention all the saves/settings I would lose or have to reset.

Looks like this is just going to be a pita like he said. Unless this migration program turns out some kind of miracle.
 
I'll have to check out that Acronis program. I wonder if it can migrate only the windows operating files and leave program files?

On that note does anyone have any ideas on how to uninstall windows while leaving program files?

Yeah,You just select your windows drive to migrate,not your program's hardrive.
 
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