Vista - Coping whole HD's without cloning.

I have a system with Vista Home Basic and Vista Ultimate (dual boot). I have
a RAID 5 with 4 500 gb drives that is partitioned into 2 500 gb drives. I
also have a SATAII 500 gb and 1gb drive installed.

I'm upgrading all the drives to all 1.5 GB drives.

I can juggle drives in and out of the system so I can always have a clean
1.5gb to move data onto.

What is the best software to clone/copy the data, without error, and not
have to end up with the original 500gb partition on the 1.5 TB drive?

I've used the basic copy methods in Windows for years but I always get some
error that stops the copy and then I have to go back and try to figure out
just where it left off and do manual partial copies. What a pain in the butt
plus you are never sure that you got everything.

The other catch that I might run into with some of your solutions is that if
it requires a reboot with a CD or whatever, I may or may not be able to see
the RAID. This would have to be run in native Vista. I can reboot into any
OS required, as long as I can see the RAID.

Just in case this helps, I have a pre-release version of Windows 7 that I
never installed on this PC that might be a possible avenue.

Regards,

Kalbo


Anarchism
Liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion
Liberation of the human body from the dominion of property
Liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.
Anarchism stands for a social order based on the free grouping of
individuals

(I know who wrote this and she, yes, she was not a geek but she should have
been)

BootIt NG can copy and paste any partition or whole hard drives to another
drive or unallocated space.


"Billkalbo" <billkalbo@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:C3415C4D-538F-4924-8194-A396DF2A7653@xxxxxx

Your choice of course, but BootIt NG works very well with Vista and you can
use it for 30 days free.

"Billkalbo" <billkalbo@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8F61EAF0-8E6B-4CCD-B547-01579BA89B70@xxxxxx

I use BootIT NG and the similar/derived "Image for DOS and Windows" programs
on Vista partitions all the time, no problem. It's my preferred system of
backing up and restoring my systems.

"Billkalbo" <billkalbo@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8F61EAF0-8E6B-4CCD-B547-01579BA89B70@xxxxxx

BootIt NG works outside of Windows using a boot disk to install to a small
partition on your hard drive.
If you insist on working within Windows there is a new one called - EASE US.
This is a bad idea since it is a memory grabber and can use up a lot of
space.

It's still your choice,
Badger


"Billkalbo" <billkalbo@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8F61EAF0-8E6B-4CCD-B547-01579BA89B70@xxxxxx

Hi, Kalbo.

While Microsoft has deprecated it in favor of Robocop (which I've not yet
learned to use), I've often used the ancient Xcopy.exe to move whole
partitions of files. My current lineup is 4 SATA II HDDs; the first two are
standalones (200 GB and 1 TB) and the last two are identical 300 GB Seagate
Barracudas in a RAID 1 mirror. I'm running out of alphabet letters for new
volumes because I have so many beta installations, 2 DVD burners, several
USB drives and a card reader, etc.

To copy everything from Drive F: to Drive X:, for example, I would open a
Command Prompt window (probably as Administrator) and type at the prompt:

xcopy F:\ X:\ /c /h /e /r /k

Then I would press Enter and wait. It can take a LONG time to copy a drive
with a lot of files. (The number of files affects the total time more than
the size, as I'm sure you know. A single 1 GB file can move much more
quickly than 1,000 files of 1 MB each - or 100,000 files (emails or
newsgroup posts) of 10 KB each! But that is true in the GUI as well as in a
CP window.)

As usual in a CP window, type xcopy /? to see a mini-Help file listing all
the switches and parameters. I've almost forgotten what all those (/c /h,
etc.) do, but they work for me in almost all cases. The /C switch
"Continues copying even if errors occur"; obviously, this calls for caution,
but it has almost always worked for me. I've even used that set of switches
to move boot volumes for WinXP and Vista, running it from a different
Windows installation (moving one from F: to X: while booted into Vista on
C:, for example). Then I have to edit the BCD, but the old Windows usually
will boot and run fine in its new location.

I tried BootIt NG a couple of years ago and did finally manage to rescue
some "lost" data, but it was not intuitive - for me. I'm much more
comfortable using the built-in commands in Windows: Disk Management,
DiskPart.exe, Xcopy, etc.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but it has almost always worked for me.
Please report back and let us know how this works out for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Billkalbo" <billkalbo@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:C3415C4D-538F-4924-8194-A396DF2A7653@xxxxxx

Hi, again, Kalbo.

Replying to myself to correct...
That's RoboCopy, not Robocop, of course! (Spell Checker changed it.)

And I might as well clarify this one while I'm at it:
I meant whole partitions full of files.

I hope the rest of it makes sense.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"R. C. White" <rc@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ugxGT$ELKHA.4376@xxxxxx<SNIP>

In message <ugxGT$ELKHA.4376@xxxxxx> "R. C. White"
<rc@xxxxxx> was claimed to have wrote:
I was in that same position myself a few months ago. Ban yourself from
using xcopy and use robocopy for a couple months, I doubt you'll go
back.