Morning all,

 

I am running into a problem on my system, I am running out of disk space. I'm down to 3 or so gigs left. I finally have FSX and the NGX working perfectly and I don't want to reinstall everything. Is there a way to copy my hard drive, operating system and everything on it, FSX, the drivers and all that good stuff and put it on a new larger drive that I'm going to purchase? Will FSX continue to work? Appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

Richard

Don't think that is possible without running into some serious problems :)

 

I would recommend a Reinstall, even though it is not the shortest solution.

Morning all,

 

I am running into a problem on my system, I am running out of disk space. I'm down to 3 or so gigs left. I finally have FSX and the NGX working perfectly and I don't want to reinstall everything. Is there a way to copy my hard drive, operating system and everything on it, FSX, the drivers and all that good stuff and put it on a new larger drive that I'm going to purchase? Will FSX continue to work? Appreciate any thoughts on this.

 

Richard

 

There are utilities that you can use to do a disk copy from an old drive to a new larger drive. That way everything is just cloned the new drive and you do not have to reload anything. It should not be too difficult to find a good one (either free or inexpensive). Check www.cnet.com as a source. Their downloads section might be helpful.

 

This situation has been around for a long time and is doable. I have upgraded to a larger drive with no issues. Usually you run a boot disc or CD on startup with the utility (both drives attached) and the utility copies the drives without ever booting to Windows. Then when finished you just keep the new drive connected and it will boot as your operatng system because it has the same formatting (boot sectors) as your original.

Thanks!! I know reinstalling is the sure fire cure but I'm finally stopped tweaking and started flying and I just don't have the patience right now to start back at square one. I will do some research like you suggested Steve, thanks for the direction.

 

Richard

I've done this several times and it never works very well. But on the other hand what do you have to loose? If you are going to get a larger HD, might as well try to clone the old one, if it doesn't work then you can re-install.

 

Many hard drive manufacturers have utility programs on their web sites that do the cloning.

Hi Steve,

 

I went over to CNET and found this program in the download section. EaseUS-Master-Home-Edition, I read through the description and it looks like what I need but I was hoping you could take a look at it and confirm that it could work. Thanks!!!

 

http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Home-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html?tag=dropDownForm;pop

 

Richard

Hi Steve,

 

I went over to CNET and found this program in the download section. EaseUS-Master-Home-Edition, I read through the description and it looks like what I need but I was hoping you could take a look at it and confirm that it could work. Thanks!!!

 

http://download.cnet...ropDownForm;pop

 

Richard

 

Richard,

 

I have used some of the EaseUS products before and had no issues with them. Like the previous poster mentioned, since you're cloning your original drive, you're not affecting it. The key to remember is that you're copying everything from your original drive (partition, boot sector, data, etc.) to a new drive. Make sure the only hard drives you have connected are the old one and the new one. I have 5 drives in my main system. Depending on the application you are running, you need to have a way of knowing exaclty which drives you are working with so you don't accidentally mess up the wrong drive. Not trying to scare you...just wanting to make you aware.

 

If it copies the drive exactly, you might end up with an "unpartioned" area on the new drive that contains the extra drive space that you original drive did not have. Usually in Windows, you can go to the Disk Management function in the System Tools group and either extend your original partion to encompass the entire new drive or you can make that extra space a second partition and then it could be a second drive that can be used for storage or program loading.

 

As long as you're not playing with your original drive, you can always format and partition the new drive and start over again. I hope this helps you understand a little.

I went over to CNET and found this program in the download section. EaseUS-Master-Home-Edition, I read through the description and it looks like what I need but I was hoping you could take a look at it and confirm that it could work. Thanks!!!

 

http://download.cnet...ropDownForm;pop

 

Here's a better one (same company): EaseUS ToDo Backup Free 4.0

 

When I bought a bigger SSD I used this to clone my original SSD to the new one, including Windows 7-64 and FSX. Everything's been working perfectly for 3 months.

 

I also use the free version for regular clone backups of my boot SSD to an external SATA drive, and also for incremental backups of my storage HDDs. Works great and has an awesome feature set for a free product.

 

If it copies the drive exactly, you might end up with an "unpartioned" area on the new drive that contains the extra drive space that you original drive did not have.

 

FYI: When you do the clone, EaseUS ToDo Backup Free 4.0 gives you the option to extend the new drive's partition to make use of all available space on the new drive. So if the new drive is bigger than the current one, you will have your exact clone plus whatever free space remains on the new drive.

Here's a better one (same company): EaseUS ToDo Backup Free 4.0

 

When I bought a bigger SSD I used this to clone my original SSD to the new one, including Windows 7-64 and FSX. Everything's been working perfectly for 3 months.

 

I also use the free version for regular clone backups of my boot SSD to an external SATA drive, and also for incremental backups of my storage HDDs. Works great and has an awesome feature set for a free product.

 

 

 

FYI: When you do the clone, EaseUS ToDo Backup Free 4.0 gives you the option to extend the new drive's partition to make use of all available space on the new drive. So if the new drive is bigger than the current one, you will have your exact clone plus whatever free space remains on the new drive.

 

Thanks for helping out! The input is greatly appreciated! :good:

Thank you all so much gents. This is exactly what I needed, now I can sleep easy knowing I won't have to get FSX, Simconnet, WideFS all setup again. Truly appreciate the guidance.

 

Richard

Easy solution -- use a symbolic link. There is a tutorial here in the forum somewhere.

 

I have an SSD and have moved all my scenery files and aircraft files to the new SSD, created a symbolic link pointing to the new file locations without any issues.

 

any files installed to the old directory will automatically be redirected to the new location of your files.

Here's a link which may help. The files you will need are at the bottom. I've been looking into it for when I get a couple of SSDs.