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linux - Migrating Windows 7 to new hard drive/partition


So, I'be managed to migrate my Windows 7 data over from /dev/sdb3 to a new partition on /dev/sdc1 using ntfsclone. I managed to resize the volume size to match the new partition size. I also used ms-sys to add a Windows 7 MBR to /dev/sdc.


Windows won't boot. It will if I have /dev/sdb3 still enabled, but the ultimate goal here is to remove that partition. Besides, under this condition my new drive is only seen as D and not as the boot drive. I've googled all over.... Help?


The ntfsclone command was ntfsclone -O /dev/sdc1 /dev/sdb3



Answer



I found that cloning Windows partition to a different disk fails all too often, sometimes because of the changed drive letters, sometimes because of botched boot records, etc. The following two solutions helped me many times, but they are not 100% foolproof either:




  • Use "Repair" function of Windows 7 boot disk. It often manages to repair many boot problems. Change the boot drive back to C: using these instructions. Unfortunately, this does not work in 100% of cases.




  • Alternative approach: From within Windows (booted into your old partition), create a mirror of your boot/system partition as your new partition. After the mirror sync completes, break the mirror and keep the new partition only. This method requires converting your disks to dynamic disks, which may cause problems if you need to access these disks from Linux or other non-Windows OSes.




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