BIOS:  I finally found that I had to go to a site called e-support.  After doing the online diagnosis they indicated they would get back to me in 24 hrs.  Well I decided last night not to wait and so began the moving of data files to the 80gb.  That was half of my old drive, ha.  It did assign without my help the drive letter F:  This morning I got done with that.  Now I have began the copying of the C: to the 80gb, it's about 1/2 into it, using my installed NG 9.

I checked only:
Ck source for file sys errors
ck dest. for file sys errors
resize dirve to fill unallocated
set drive active (for starting OS)
destination type (primary)
copy mbr

I DID NOT assign a drive letter and I did delete the primary partition that I had made (30gb) so that the copying is presently going into an unallocated space.

Mack

What's next  ???

Mackjazz wrote on Nov 1^st, 2006 at 11:56am:

I have a Toyota 4WD KingCab pickup truck which I operate in two separate and distinct modes:

• (1)  When my load is light and the roadway is level for cruising, I keep the hubs of the front wheels unlocked and the transfer case in the default high-range setting albeit totally disengaged so only the rear wheels are driving.

• (2)  When faced with pulling a heavily laden boat trailer up a steep ramp, I dismount to lock the front wheel hubs and then remount to engage the transfer case while dropping into the low-range setting that ensures all four wheels will be pulling with maximum torque.

Using the above for an analogy, it seems to me that the wrong mode for the particular task at hand has been chosen.  Either Norton Ghost 2003 or Ghost Ver 8.2 running in a Windows Preinstalled Environment could have accomplished this unique job cleanly in a single pass while virtually "running-on-autopilot".

Oh, well - Chacun à son gout.

WELL FOLKS...........................

It took just over an hour this time to make the copy (clone).  I then shut everything down without any other changes, exchanged dirves, fired it up and WA LLLL AAAAAAAA............ everything came up perfect and it seems to work perfect.  I went in and checked email etc, then I shut it down and rebooted just to make sure.  So far so good.

Couple of observations:

The first time although it went through the black check screen super fast, as well as the blue screen to the desktop it was there that it took about 5 times as long to bring up my icons and be finished with the total loading.  However the second boot was fast on everything.  This drive is quieter but has a high pitched whine, but beggers should not be choosy

For quite awhle after the first boot was complete my cpu ran at 100% and I noticed that one of the several svchosts was using 80 to 90%.  The second reboot things seem more normal.

Couple of questions:

Can I use PM to resize my new C:  If so what would be a good recommendation for the sys size?  Also if and when I do this can I then use the extra space for my data partition which is NTFS?  Is it okay to have the C: a FAT32 and the D: NTFS?

My new data drive was assigned F and I normally use one of my external drives for F: (and I reallly need to continue doing so due to flle tracking and scanning) so can I use computer management to change the Data drive to D: ?  Any bad side effects?
I think I should do this sooner than later.

I also need to make an image of this new drive and intall on my old 40gb C: which of course will wipe out what is there now and I believe it has been suggested (Brian) that I leave the D: (old 40gb) DISE_BACKUP alone which I concur.  What are the suggested steps to do this?  What about making a restore point at this juncture?

Lastly Kudos to the gang who has helped me in all of this:

Namely:
Brian
Dan (your site is an awesome resource)
EP (The X got my several Suburban's w/manual hubs long ago:)
Ben
...... other's who indirectly contributed.

Kindly,
Mack

Mack, slight change of plan if you haven't already started. Write the image of your new HD C: drive to your new HD data drive and copy it (not move) to the NTFS partition on the old HD (using Windows Explorer) after you delete the old C: drive. Just belt and braces until you are fully set up.

The C drive is pretty clean.  I moved the big data files already which took just over half of the 30gb on C.  I use this computer for work etc but I can't imagine needing more than 10 more gigs for additional program space.   I would say 20 or 25gb tops would be all I need for my sys C.  What I wanted to know is if there was a philosphy out there about the sys drive size?  Should it be as small as possible, doesn't matter or what?

Data will always grow which is why I like the larger D drive.  Plus I Dj and although I use 2 very large firewire ext drives (over 200gb) I like to have a solid core of good music kept on the D: data drive just in case I have an ext hd issue while working.

I have not started the transfer and image so I will go ahead and do as you said in your last note.  I did go back and read #30 but I am not sure aobut the setting of usb 1.  Is that a reference to usb transfer?  If so I use firewire as my puter does not have usb 2.0.  If not I will follow and disregard my question.

About how much space do you suppose this image will take or be?  My new D: data drive has about 29gb open.  And will the image be only of my new C:  What about a backup image of my new D: which is now housing my important data?  To me its even more important than my sys image.

I do understand that its temp as I will be copying it over to the old 40gb.  You mentioned to delete I think the old C: and make it a NTFS.  After doing all this what about the image now on the new D: data drive?  Am I leaving it so I have 2 copies?

thx bunches
Mack

thanks for all that information
just a word of advise keep that 40 Gb HDD safe
do not go fdisking it  you never know when it can come handy.

another question do you  still see the message at boot up saying
press F10(F11) to recover (for few seconds  like what you used to get with the 40 Gb drive ???

Good luck and regards Ben

The only things I see (Ben) are the F1 and F2 options at the beginning of the black screen which is the same that I saw on the old 40gb.  I don't remember a F10 but perhaps that could be due to my using NGo back?

So it sounds like I should just keep the old 40gb as it is (now that it has alot less data on it) just for a backup of my main stuff in case of a hd failure of the new 80gb correct?

But do make an image of the new C and store it temp in the D, then convert C from FAT to NTFS, then delete the image on D, then create a new image of C and store on one of my 2 big arger ext drives?  Although I have literally thousands of songs for my bus. I am sure I have space for this image.

One point I am not clear on.  I have the new C with the OS and all my programs and a D with just all my data.  Is that preferred or should my programs be somewhere else?  Perhaps on another partition?

I assume I am making an image of the whole C which would include all my programs etc.?

And is it prefered to change the small FAT32 to NTFS even now that it is smaller?  And will I still be able to resize the extra space saved on C to my data drive?  Sorry for the detailed questions?

Thanks Brian for the tip on how best to make my data copies.  I use to have mirrored hd for my music and now as time goes by I dont but it sounds like this program will greatly help me in this as well as my current needs.

Mack