Darrin Chandler wrote:
> vodhner@cox.net wrote:
>
>> Can Linux dd + parted + other stuff move an XP system to a bigger
>> disk, and then stretch the new partition?
>>
>> This is a friend's system, way underpowered, and he is living on ramen
>> noodles and sleeping on the floor so any investment is basically out.
>>
>> The XP partition is only 2 GB, and that's not enough to run.
>> I can't install the latest security updates, though I've moved the
>> pagefile and IE cache to another device.
>>
>> So, I have another disk available, 6 GB, and would like to move the XP
>> installation onto it. I presume I could use dd to move the system in
>> raw form, but then the partition table on the new drive would be
>> messed up. Right?
>>
>> Suppose I were to pre-format the new disk to have (approximately) the
>> same size of NTFS partition, with the rest of the disk unused? Could
>> I do a binary copy of the other partition's contents, and then resize
>> the new partition to use the whole disk? (I doubt that.)
>>
>> Someone has suggested BootIt Next Generation, shareware from Terabyte
>> Unlimited (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/). I have been looking
>> through their documentation but am not sure yet whether it would take
>> care of this for me. It seems to have some sort of extended partition
>> table format which is a little scarey.
>>
>> This XP is validated for the box, so hopefully it would not give us a
>> hassle running from a different physical disk if all else remained the
>> same. I don't have access to his original XP license, of course.
>> I'm bringing him up on Linux, but he's using some resources that
>> require Media Player so he needs Windows too. I presume there's no
>> way around that.
>>
>> Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>
>
> You should be able to dd yourself onto the new drive okay. Just make
> sure you copy enough to get it all. Growing the partition for XP isn't
> something I know about, apart from knowing that there are tools out
> there. The good thing is that you can try as many times as you need
> until you get it right. :)
>
> The XP validation is another matter entirely. I don't know where the
> breaking points are on hardware changes. It's worth a shot.
>
I think it's worth a shot too. I've moved W98 from a 15G to a 40G drive
by dd'ing the whole drive, not just a partition:
$ dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=1k
(use appropriate hd letters)
qtparted (on system rescue CD) should then be able to grow the NTFS
partition on the new drive. I know it can shrink NTFS ok, so I presume
that growing would be no problem, especially on that small of a drive.
You might want to be sure that the bios can address the whole new drive.
I'm guessing that you'll be ok with activation as long as everything
else remains the same. They allow some (but not much) leeway.
--
-Eric 'shubes'
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