Transfer of contents from old HDD to new HDD

dactel

I am trying to transfer ALL my stuff from my old HDD to my new HDD. Ive got Windows 7 working on my new HDD but I want to transfer ALL my Programs, Anti-virus, Bookmarks, Passwords, Personal Files, Photos & Videos etc.,

Ive tried using Windows 7 Backup&Restore facility but it wont work properly, informing me its failed to Backup all files, and it wont allow me to restore.

Can someone recommend an alternative way of doing this.

prowla

I don't have it to hand, but I did a search and Microsoft recommend some tools to do transfers of an entire working installation to a new disk.

I've done this a couple of times on Windows 7; on one computer when migrating to an SSD disk, and on another when changing to a larger HDD.

boxst

I've never managed to do that. I have 'cloned' my hard drive to transfer everything from one drive to another, but not just the programs as they typically put things in the systemxx directory and alter the registery.

The data is easy, you can just plug in your old hard drive and copy and paste to your new one in the same location.

The programs you will have to re-install...

andy2004

Cloning the old hard drive to the new drive would have been quicker
would have taken a meer 20minutes max depending on your hardware aka speed of your hdds.
then after cloning you disconnect the old hdd and test the new making sure its done. then you can reconnect the old hdd and format it and use it as spare storage.
Hirens boot cd has the ability, hdclone i think its called freeware.
must be done outside the OS due to the copying of all data which includes locked files if in use.

Cloning copies everything as it is, you can also as the new drive is bigger make the C drive bigger or smaller.
example say the old drive is 320gb and new drive is 1tb.
on the 320gb you are using only 100gb for the os and programs when you clone onto the 1tb you could tell it to only use 100gb and then partition then other remaining 831gb for data backups instead of creating a 320gb partition.

Heres a how to link http://lifehacker.com/5517688/how-to-upgrade-your-tiny-hard-drive-to-a-spacious-new-one-and-keep-your-data-intact

another option is to use a program like acronis true image to make a image of the old drive and then recover the image to the new drive. same idea as cloning but you'll have the image to recover whenever you need to say from an virus infection.

Avoriaz

dactel wrote: »

I am trying to transfer ALL my stuff from my old HDD to my new HDD. Ive got Windows 7 working on my new HDD but I want to transfer ALL my Programs, Anti-virus, Bookmarks, Passwords, Personal Files, Photos & Videos etc.,

Ive tried using Windows 7 Backup&Restore facility but it wont work properly, informing me its failed to Backup all files, and it wont allow me to restore.

Can someone recommend an alternative way of doing this.

If I were doing that I would install all the programmes from scratch, assuming that I still had the original CDs, DVDs or install files. I would use that as an oportunity to make sure I had all the latest versions and also not install stuff I no longer need.

More effort but probably a much cleaner result.

Bookmarks etc are easily extracted and copied over.

I would transfer personal files manually, using it as an opportunity to delete stuff I no longer want.

fwor

As above, assuming that you have Win7 on the old HDD and you're not changing hardware, cloning is the way to go.

If you want to stick with free/open source tools, use Clonezilla to do the copying, and then GPARTED to resize the partitions if the new HDD is bigger. Note that you have to unmount a partition before you get the option to resize it.

dactel

Some great advice here. Thanks everyone.

So far ive used Windows Easy Transfer fortransferring the data etc., and the software programs ive installed afresh. Im now finishing off the dribs and drabs eg the Firefox Bookmarks and the printer drivers and software.

Ive used Windows Easy Transfer in Windows 7 before, its pretty good. But next time i'll probably clone.

Once again, thanks.