Reconfiguring Hard Disks

[Aeronut]

I built a PC and installed 2 x 320Gb hard disks. Not knowing much about this I had disk one for everything; operating system all programs and files (C: ), the other to simply mirror everything as a backup (E: ) (using Vista).

This was a superb feature since my last PC had only one HD!

Worked fine but I've now nearly filled up the first disk and hence the almost identical in content backup also.

I just installed a 1TB hard drive as a seperate drive (H: ) but dont know what to do with it.

I understand it might be good to have C: dedicated to the OS (Vista 64) and keep all files and programs on the other 320GB and use the 1TB as a backup?

Is there a good way to move the programs and files to E: from C: preferably without losing everything as I will be messing with my existing backup ?

I'm thinking that there are numerous program links all looking for C: addresses which will fail if I move programs to E: ? Not sure how to do this.
might be good for me to backup onto H before doing anything else?

The files move C: to E: would be a simple folders drag and drop job right?

The other concern I have is that even if I mirrored everything on the 2 x 320Gb drives my backup could only ever require 640Gb which will never fully utilise the 1TB.

[Saab Dastard]

Don't move the programs from C!

Just move the data from C to E (although it should already be there, if you have been copying it from C all along) or delete the program stuff from E, if you have been copying it there.

For your backup solution it might be a thought to put the 1TB disk in an external USB caddy and have it separate from the PC.

I would use some of the space on the 1TB disk to create a disk image (e.g. Ghost or similar) of C on a regular basis (keep no more than 2, this week's, last week's, so you aren't over-writing your only copy) to make it relatively painless to recover from a problem. The image will be much less than 320 GB, as it will not include unused blocks and can be compressed.

If you have on-board SATA that supports RAID, and the 320GB disks are SATA, you could create a hardware RAID2 mirror for the system disk and use the 1TB for data - of course you would then have to get another 1TB disk to back that up! It would be the RR solution. :)

SD

PS - don't use "mirror" when you mean copy: mirror has a specific meaning, i.e. RAID1

[hellsbrink]

SD's solution is right as far as using a USB caddy, you should do that, except I would use one of the 320Gig drives and not the big one.


One issue is that the registry *might* throw a wobbly if you move things from one drive to another. Depending on the program, and some can be REALLY fussy, re-installing them might be the only solution (make sure you copy any important data to somewhere else so you can paste that into the new directory!!). But many programs will, because they will pop up a request box asking where the darned thing is, rewrite the path, etc, to the registry once you tell the program where to look.

Oh, NEVER use the full capacity of a hard disk. That will cause all sorts of issues. Also, never "mirror" or ghost the whole drive. Just look at what is the important stuff, like documents/pictures/music/movies/yadayadayada and keep a copy of them. Everything else can be reinstalled IF a disk decides to die (and if you fill it so there is no free space then it will die). The other advantage of doing things that way is if you get hit by a virus/trojan/malware then your backup will not put the damn thing back onto your machine when you restore things after such an attack (which is why I never use "system restore").

[Mac the Knife]

Hard links and junction points are the answer to your problems

Link Shell Extension (http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html)

DO read up and understand what you are doing...

Mac

[Bushfiva]

Since you're installing a drive but don't know what to do with it, I'm guessing you're a hardware person rather than a software person.

The safest option is probably to leave all your programs on C, and move your data to E. Use a tool such as Winbubble to tell Vista that your special folders ("my documents", etc.) are now on E. You can then back stuff up to your new drive.

If cash weren't an issue, I'd probably simply clone C to the new drive using something like Easeus, use the 1TB drive as the new C, and buy a second 1TB drive so you could continue to use the computer in the manner you're used to.