How to clone and use a Windows boot drive

[Bottiger]

I just moved my boot drive to a new disk and none of the guides on the internet worked by themselves. I figured these steps out myself.

1. make new partition, mark as active
go into command prompt and type the following
diskpart
list disk
select disk N
clean
create partition primary align=4096
format fs=ntfs quick
active
exit

2. use drivexml to copy the partition to the new disk

3. use easybcd
click advanced settings
change drive to the new drive
click save

4. open regedit on the new drive and move the C: drive
enter the command prompt and type regedit
click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
click file, load hive
open H:\Windows\System32\config\SYSTEM (WHERE H IS THE NEW DRIVE)
type random name
click random name
click MountedDevices
Rename \DosDevices\C: to an unused letter like Z
click HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
click file, unload hive

5. reboot
choose your new drive

6. open easybcd
move boot drive or recreate bcd? one or both these is necessary

 

[KillerZebra]

i use Ghost4Linux for my imagining needs.

either that or use Windows 7 system image tool in the control panel. Back up my harddrive to my externals

 

[xKINGMOBx]

Awesome post, did not sign up expecting to find good stuff like this in here

Am I allowed to swear on these boards?

Zebra, you use Linux? I have a metric ton of computers and none are running Linux. I'm setting up a newer box to use as a practice AD environment for an upcoming cert, and was thinking start with a dual boot.

 

[JarlyX]

Awesome post, did not sign up expecting to find good stuff like this in here

Am I allowed to swear on these boards?

Zebra, you use Linux? I have a metric ton of computers and none are running Linux. I'm setting up a newer box to use as a practice AD environment for an upcoming cert, and was thinking start with a dual boot.

You can swear all you want, but no flaming or racist outside unmoderated.

 

[Lord Killington]

Am I allowed to swear on these boards?

 

[Sharkey]

Awesome post, did not sign up expecting to find good stuff like this in here

Am I allowed to swear on these boards?

Zebra, you use Linux? I have a metric ton of computers and none are running Linux. I'm setting up a newer box to use as a practice AD environment for an upcoming cert, and was thinking start with a dual boot.

It could just be a live CD.

Dual boot is a pain imo, you could just run EXSi or choose a main OS and host the other within it.

 

[xKINGMOBx]

I have VMware and could just run it in there, the idea is to get some XP and level up your tech skills. An Active Directory domain is no cup of tea and lord knows Ill be fighting ports and certificates if I run my fibre op through it when I try to play TF2

 

[mohawkg2]

Wow

 

[Sir Gooch P Tigglington]

I use dd.

 

[KOS-MOS]

It could just be a live CD.

Dual boot is a pain imo, you could just run EXSi or choose a main OS and host the other within it.

Dual booting into Linux is easy if windows is already installed. You just need another partition and Linux will take care of the rest. Removing Linux however can be a pain in the ass. I run both windows 7 and Kubuntu atm on one box and CentOS on my standalone box.

 

[Sharkey]

Dual booting into Linux is easy if windows is already installed. You just need another partition and Linux will take care of the rest. Removing Linux however can be a pain in the ass. I run both windows 7 and Kubuntu atm on one box and CentOS on my standalone box.

You have to restart to change OS's, you can't use two at the same time with dual boot. So if you need to do some small thing on linux you get to shut down everything on windows and reboot, then shut down everything in linux to reboot back into windows.

 

[Steak]

ive also found clonezilla to be quite useful as it generally copies the drive at a much much lower level for a nearly perfect copy

 

[KOS-MOS]

You have to restart to change OS's, you can't use two at the same time with dual boot. So if you need to do some small thing on linux you get to shut down everything on windows and reboot, then shut down everything in linux to reboot back into windows.

Well, if it's something small, that's why I have 2 boxes and a switch for easy changing between them for my monitor/keyboard/mouse.

 

[Sharkey]

Well, if it's something small, that's why I have 2 boxes and a switch for easy changing between them for my monitor/keyboard/mouse.

If you have two separate machines it's not dual boot ;)

 

[KOS-MOS]

If you have two separate machines it's not dual boot ;)

One of them is dual boot, the other is Stand alone. Was saying if its something minor, I have no need to reboot into the dual boot, just use the standalone.

 

[P Lash]

This is quite helpful. Thanks!

 

[Sir Gooch P Tigglington]

You have to restart to change OS's, you can't use two at the same time with dual boot. So if you need to do some small thing on linux you get to shut down everything on windows and reboot, then shut down everything in linux to reboot back into windows.

VirtualBox, brah.

 

[Sharkey]

VirtualBox, brah.

It could just be a live CD.

Dual boot is a pain imo, you could just run EXSi or choose a main OS and host the other within it.

 

[Sir Gooch P Tigglington]

It seems we are in agreeance, sir. Have a Like.

 

[Sir Gooch P Tigglington]

If you run VirtualBox in teh lunixs, you could have your main desktop on one workspace, and then BAM, windows on second workspace.