HD Cloning: Destination Disk Grayed Out

[sumdudez]

Hello everyone!

I am trying to clone my old hard drive into my new hard drive, but I am experiencing problems. I am using Acronis True Image, but when I reach the prompt to choose a destination drive, all hard drives are grayed out, so I can't click them. I am trying to clone my old HD (1tb) into my new HD (500gb). I understand that it would be impossible to clone 1tb of data into a 500gb hd, but of the 1tb hard drive, only 400gb is used. Even after formatting my new hd, 460 gbs are available, so I don't understand why I can't clone my old hard drive.

I've read on the forums that I need to shrink the partitions (?) of my old hard drive, but I'm not even sure if this is why my HD is grayed out or if this is a good solution. I've also read that it is not possible to clone hard drives of different brands (My old HD is Seagate Barracuda and my new HD is Western Digital Caviar Blue). Any help would be greatly appreciated, since my old HD is showing signs of failing.

Thanks for all responses!

 

[scout_03]

did you try the disc wizard from seagate http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/

 

[sumdudez]

did you try the disc wizard from seagate http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/

Yes, it is exactly the same

 

[egilbe]

I think cloning copies the partition tables, too. A 1TB drive will have different partition tables than a 500GB drive. If you shrink your 1 tb drive down so the partition is less than 500GB's it should work. I usually use Windows backup and it seems to work, but I've always gone from a smaller drive to a larger drive and have had to extend the volumes when finished.

 

[sumdudez]

I think cloning copies the partition tables, too. A 1TB drive will have different partition tables than a 500GB drive. If you shrink your 1 tb drive down so the partition is less than 500GB's it should work. I usually use Windows backup and it seems to work, but I've always gone from a smaller drive to a larger drive and have had to extend the volumes when finished.

I think upgrading would be most ideal, but after purchasing a 1tb, I felt that it wasn't necessary to have so much space, since I only used only 400gb in 2 years. Also, could you explain how you use windows backup? I'm not sure we're talking about the same things: I need a clone, not a backup since my drive is failing ): Thank you for your input!

Or... would a backup do the same job? I think a backup only saves data, not OS.

 

[egilbe]

Go to windows back up. Create a recovery disk, then create a drive image. Use the recovery disc to restore the drive image to the new drive. I use an external 1tb drive for my image backups and restore from that. It works pretty slick, although it is kinda slow. I'm using an USB 2.0 enclosure, so it takes awhile.

 

[scout_03]

you could also try this http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/home-edition/

 

[mbreslin1954]

I think Windows Disk Manager will allow you to shrink your 1 TB partition. Go to Start--> Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Computer Management, then Disk Management from the left-hand window pane. Select your disk, right-click, select "Shrink Volume".

 

[sumdudez]

Best answer selected by sumdudez.

 

[sumdudez]

I think Windows Disk Manager will allow you to shrink your 1 TB partition. Go to Start--> Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Computer Management, then Disk Management from the left-hand window pane. Select your disk, right-click, select "Shrink Volume".

This was the exact answer I was looking for! Thank you for your help!

However, I've encountered some problems with shrinking partitions. Even after defragmenting the drive, there are other factors that prevent the drive from shrinking, which I have found a link for on a partition thread (I would have look there first if I had known partitions were the problem).