How to successfully transfer my windows 7 OS and files from my old hard drive to a brand new 1TB hard drive?
Basically I јυѕt installed windows 7 аnd finally fіnіѕhеd setting everything up аnd installing аll mу software. Hοw wουld I bе аblе tο transfer everything tο a strain nеw 1TB hdd thаt mу wife јυѕt bουght mе??? Anу point software οr method? Thanks іn advance!
Open up the tower and see how many slots you have…you might be able to get away with having both hard drives in there. That would be most ideal.
If not, though, go get yourself an external hard drive and go everything to it from your current setup, then bed in the new hard drive. Once that’s in place, then transfer everything from the external to the new hard drive. As far as software and applications go, there’s no way around it, you’ll have to do a fresh bed in of those..
Ghosting the drive would probably be simplest. Ghost the void one, mount the new one, restore the ghost (then you might have to call Microsoft because the OS is running on “the ill-treat computer” – it’s a 5 minute process). There are many free ghosting programs out there, or you can use dd on any Linux disk (boot into Linux and run dd with if [input] being the Windows drive). There’s a (very extensive) tutorial at http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/learn-the-dd-command-362506/
If you want to make a mirror image backup of your system so you can restore it, you can do it for free with Easeus Todo backup
http://www.todo-backup.com/
guide
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3911/easeus-todo-is-a-free-backup-utility-for-windows/
or Macrium Reflect Free
http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
record guides
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1cRq5SuFpY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRqsw4U8S60
Use Windows Simple Transfer to easily transfer your files: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Transferring-files-and-settings-frequently-questioned-questions.
Cheers,
Tara
Windows Outreach Team