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The Great Hard Drive Upgrade of 2011...
Sep. 3rd, 2011 12:05 pmAs there was no immediate demand for my services after sending off the item due yesterday morning, I methodically began the process of moving all my files from the 160-GB drive my Acer came with to a 500-GB drive from the same product line (WD Scorpio Blue) as the drive currently in my machine.
The first step was to make a backup of my current drive, which I did using Disk2VHD. That took about 3-1/2 hours. (Note to self: With the new drive, this operation will likely take at least three times as long.)
The next step was to use an Apricorn DriveWire device to basically turn the new 500-GB drive into an external USB drive attached to my computer. This went smoothly.
Then I used DriveImage XML to create the necessary partitions on the new drive, to make what would become my C partition bootable, and to copy data from the old C partition to the new one. No hiccups here, either.
But try as I might, however, I could not figure out how to get the program to copy the 100-MB or so of system information that sits in its own small partition at the beginning of the disk, "in front" of the C partition, nor could I copy the data from the D partition, because the software kept reporting a failure to get a "lock" on this chunk of real estate on the new drive (to avoid potential trouble associated with going to look for stuff on a nonexistent D drive, I decided to partition the new drive into C and D the same way I have C and D on the old drive.)
As I understand it, "locking" a resource (such as a drive or a file) basically means setting things up so that no other process can modify it until the resource is released. And while I could see no reason for any other process to want to screw around with the D drive while I was copying data to it, I figured the error message was there for a reason, so I paused to think and regroup.
The above problems were solved after a little digging on the Internet, which revealed that the dd utility could be used from the command line in Linux, which would allow data to be copied from and to partitions with no drive letters (the case with that small system partition), and completely eliminate the "can't get a lock" problem (neither old nor new drive was mounted).
Rebooting the machine with the bootable Ubuntu thumb drive I keep in my top drawer got me where I wanted to be in short order. After making sure of device names and double checking my command line, things went as quickly as the USB interface would allow (as it turned out, it took 21,531.1 seconds, of just short of 6 hours, to transfer 100 GB of data from one D partition to the other).
So when I got up this morning, I had a new drive that was, for all intents and purposes, identical to my old one in terms of the data on it, plus a lot more space for more data. However, just because the C partition was bootable didn't mean it would boot. An attempt to boot from the new drive (still connected via USB) got me the error message
Ironically, the major problem I faced was (almost) not being able to find a working DVD burner in the house. The Acer does not have a built-in CD/DVD player, and the external unit I bought to use with the machine is read-only. In the end, the unit I ended up using successfully—inside an old VAIO—required quite a blast of canned air through its innards before the hardware would cooperate). I used ImageBurn to create a Windows Installation DVD, and then booted my computer from it.
The Windows 7 software on the DVD is smart enough to look at your drives for you, but apparently, not smart enough—nor, in any honesty, should it be—to wonder if any of your USB drives need to be looked at, too.
In effect, this meant it was now time to actually take the old drive out of my computer and put the new one in. The process went smoothly, and after screwing the case back together, I rebooted from the DVD again.
After selecting the system repair option, the software scanned my drive and did something (not sure what), and said a repair had been made. However, upon rebooting with the DVD disconnected, I got the same BOOTMGR is missing message, so I rebooted the DVD once more and again selected system repair.
Something else got fixed, this time, and the next attempt to restart the machine finally got past that message into Windows 7 proper.
During the first boot with the new drive, I was a little disappointed to see "Preparing Your Desktop" on my screen, as this suggested to me that something vital had changed and that I may have to reconstruct my desktop, my dual-screen configuration, and who knew what else? Indeed, when Windows stopped fussing, I was looking at default Aspire wallpaper on one screen only. Then my antivirus piped up to welcome me as a new user.
"Ah, well," I thought to myself, "these are small prices to pay for nearly tripling my disk storage!"
Then I noticed that, while the C drive was correctly sized when looking at my Computer in Explorer, my D drive was not even shown. I took care of this with Windows Disk Management, assigning the appropriate letter to the partition.
Now the D drive showed when looking at my Computer, but it displayed the wrong size (94 GB instead of 297 GB) so I ran chkdsk, which reported no file errors on my 94-GB D drive.
Eventually, after a few restarts (during which my old wallpaper and screen configuration were restored with no help from me), I learned how to use DISKPART, where—after selecting the partition one wants to work with—one can enter the command extend filesystem, and voilà!—everything came together, as far as I can see.
The major thing I have to look out for now is any software whose copy protection scheme relies, either in whole or in part, on hard disk firmware information. So far, the OS has not complained, nor has Word, nor has FineReader 10 (does it sound like I've been doing work? I have!). Based on past experience, I believe WordFast may require me to get a new installation code. In any event, we'll play this by ear and document any glitches.
Cheers...
The first step was to make a backup of my current drive, which I did using Disk2VHD. That took about 3-1/2 hours. (Note to self: With the new drive, this operation will likely take at least three times as long.)
The next step was to use an Apricorn DriveWire device to basically turn the new 500-GB drive into an external USB drive attached to my computer. This went smoothly.
Then I used DriveImage XML to create the necessary partitions on the new drive, to make what would become my C partition bootable, and to copy data from the old C partition to the new one. No hiccups here, either.
But try as I might, however, I could not figure out how to get the program to copy the 100-MB or so of system information that sits in its own small partition at the beginning of the disk, "in front" of the C partition, nor could I copy the data from the D partition, because the software kept reporting a failure to get a "lock" on this chunk of real estate on the new drive (to avoid potential trouble associated with going to look for stuff on a nonexistent D drive, I decided to partition the new drive into C and D the same way I have C and D on the old drive.)
As I understand it, "locking" a resource (such as a drive or a file) basically means setting things up so that no other process can modify it until the resource is released. And while I could see no reason for any other process to want to screw around with the D drive while I was copying data to it, I figured the error message was there for a reason, so I paused to think and regroup.
The above problems were solved after a little digging on the Internet, which revealed that the dd utility could be used from the command line in Linux, which would allow data to be copied from and to partitions with no drive letters (the case with that small system partition), and completely eliminate the "can't get a lock" problem (neither old nor new drive was mounted).
Rebooting the machine with the bootable Ubuntu thumb drive I keep in my top drawer got me where I wanted to be in short order. After making sure of device names and double checking my command line, things went as quickly as the USB interface would allow (as it turned out, it took 21,531.1 seconds, of just short of 6 hours, to transfer 100 GB of data from one D partition to the other).
So when I got up this morning, I had a new drive that was, for all intents and purposes, identical to my old one in terms of the data on it, plus a lot more space for more data. However, just because the C partition was bootable didn't mean it would boot. An attempt to boot from the new drive (still connected via USB) got me the error message
BOOTMGR is missingFortunately, a recent item at Lifehacker.com provided a link to a legitimate, downloadable Windows 7 ISO image that, once burned to a DVD, allows one to repair a Windows installation (among other things; it's also useful to have around if you need to just reinstall the OS instead of doing the whole "restore the machine to factory settings" routine).
Ironically, the major problem I faced was (almost) not being able to find a working DVD burner in the house. The Acer does not have a built-in CD/DVD player, and the external unit I bought to use with the machine is read-only. In the end, the unit I ended up using successfully—inside an old VAIO—required quite a blast of canned air through its innards before the hardware would cooperate). I used ImageBurn to create a Windows Installation DVD, and then booted my computer from it.
The Windows 7 software on the DVD is smart enough to look at your drives for you, but apparently, not smart enough—nor, in any honesty, should it be—to wonder if any of your USB drives need to be looked at, too.
In effect, this meant it was now time to actually take the old drive out of my computer and put the new one in. The process went smoothly, and after screwing the case back together, I rebooted from the DVD again.
After selecting the system repair option, the software scanned my drive and did something (not sure what), and said a repair had been made. However, upon rebooting with the DVD disconnected, I got the same BOOTMGR is missing message, so I rebooted the DVD once more and again selected system repair.
Something else got fixed, this time, and the next attempt to restart the machine finally got past that message into Windows 7 proper.
During the first boot with the new drive, I was a little disappointed to see "Preparing Your Desktop" on my screen, as this suggested to me that something vital had changed and that I may have to reconstruct my desktop, my dual-screen configuration, and who knew what else? Indeed, when Windows stopped fussing, I was looking at default Aspire wallpaper on one screen only. Then my antivirus piped up to welcome me as a new user.
"Ah, well," I thought to myself, "these are small prices to pay for nearly tripling my disk storage!"
Then I noticed that, while the C drive was correctly sized when looking at my Computer in Explorer, my D drive was not even shown. I took care of this with Windows Disk Management, assigning the appropriate letter to the partition.
Now the D drive showed when looking at my Computer, but it displayed the wrong size (94 GB instead of 297 GB) so I ran chkdsk, which reported no file errors on my 94-GB D drive.
Eventually, after a few restarts (during which my old wallpaper and screen configuration were restored with no help from me), I learned how to use DISKPART, where—after selecting the partition one wants to work with—one can enter the command extend filesystem, and voilà!—everything came together, as far as I can see.
The major thing I have to look out for now is any software whose copy protection scheme relies, either in whole or in part, on hard disk firmware information. So far, the OS has not complained, nor has Word, nor has FineReader 10 (does it sound like I've been doing work? I have!). Based on past experience, I believe WordFast may require me to get a new installation code. In any event, we'll play this by ear and document any glitches.
Cheers...
