Transfering XP install to new HD (FAT32 to NTSF)

[Earendil]

I just bought a new HD, a nice terebyte drive, and want to get my XP install off the Fat32 portion of my drive, and onto an XP partition on the new external.

If I set aside a 50gb NTSF partition, can I just run something like CCC and transferring the Fat32 XP install? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?

I'm also going to install Vista for dev work (and for fun). I'm thinking another 50gb should be enough to install Vista and make it happy. What do you guys think? Are the "space required" metrics pretty accurate for the vista install?
I wouldn't have too much more on there, just VS'08 and a few other dev tools.

Third question, I'm thinking of toying with W7. Since this will be for toying purposes, I don't really need a large chunk of extra space, just the bare minimum to run it. Anyone see any problems with using the specifications for W7 HD requirements?

I'm itching to get this new drive formatted and partitioned!

 

[sushi]

WinClone will let you make an image of NTFS/FAT32 partition.

When you do this it creates an image file that you will need to store somewhere.

So here is what I would do:

Note, OD equals old hard drive and ND equals new hard drive.

1. Connect the ND externally to your computer.

2. Use CCC to clone your OD to your ND.

3. Use WinClone to clone the old Windows partition to your OD. It will create an image file.

4. Use WinClone to clone the partition image on your OD to the ND.

5. Boot up testing the ND in both Mac and Windows. If it works, swap hard drives.

Note with BootCamp you can only partition a hard drive into two partitions: Mac and Windows.

If you want to run various Windows OS'es, then you can use Parallels or VMware to run Windows virtually. It works really well except for FPS type games. I currently use VMware Fusion to host 2K, XP, Vista and Ubuntu. I will be adding Win7, 98, 95 and DOS.

 

[Earendil]

THanks for the helpful steps and suggestions on programs!

I'll have to modify the steps a little bit, as I bought a terebyte external, which will not be replacing my internal (which is a 2.5 inside a Mini).

However, since I only have a 4gb Fat32 partition on the mini, I wanted to expand that and set aside some good windows space on the ND.

So, if I understand you correctly, there isn't an (easy) way to partition a drive into a couple different NTSF sections, that are all bootable from an Apple machine? And this is a limitation of Bootcamp, right?

Also to clarify, WinClone will have no problem cloning an OS from a FAT32 partition onto a NTSF volume?

I believe I have one of the interpretive software packages around my computer someplace when they were doing a free giveaway. I'll have to look into which one it is and if it handles running Windows OS's within MacOSX.

Thanks again.

 

[sushi]

THanks for the helpful steps and suggestions on programs!

I'll have to modify the steps a little bit, as I bought a terebyte external, which will not be replacing my internal (which is a 2.5 inside a Mini).

However, since I only have a 4gb Fat32 partition on the mini, I wanted to expand that and set aside some good windows space on the ND.

So, if I understand you correctly, there isn't an (easy) way to partition a drive into a couple different NTSF sections, that are all bootable from an Apple machine? And this is a limitation of Bootcamp, right?

Also to clarify, WinClone will have no problem cloning an OS from a FAT32 partition onto a NTSF volume?

I believe I have one of the interpretive software packages around my computer someplace when they were doing a free giveaway. I'll have to look into which one it is and if it handles running Windows OS's within MacOSX.

BootCamp only allows for one Mac partition and one Windows partition. And the HD must be internal. Now, I have not tried to fix up an internal HD with a Mac and Windows partition, and then taken it out, put it in an external enclosure and tried booting from it. Might work. Don't know.

The reason that I mention this, is that you could open up the Mini and connect your 1TB ND directly to the Mac Mini. Once done configuring it, move it back to the external case. Who knows, might work. Note, you will need some sort of power supply for your 3.5 inch HD. Probably can figure a way to use the external enclosure's power supply when you connect the HD to the Mac Mini.

When you install Windows, as you know, you can partition as NTFS or FAT32. IMHO, NTFS is the better way to go.

BTW, WinClone used to only support NTFS partitions. Now it supports FAT32 as well.

WinClone can partition and install Windows. Not sure which is the better way. I tend to use the BootCamp utility to create and remove the Windows partition. It works well and is easy to use.

If you wanted to change the size of the Windows partition on the internal HD, I would use WinClone to clone the drive to the external 1TB HD. The result is an image file. Then remove the Windows partition on the internal using BootCamp. Restart the Mac Mini to make sure all is well. Then use BootCamp to make the new partition. Then use WinClone to restore the Windows image from your external 1TB drive to the internal HD.

If you are really interested in making more boot partitions on your internal HD, you can do a search of MR. Some have done this. Not sure for Windows, but Linux rings a bell.

Also, if you really want to run many different Windows and Linux OS'es, I would definitely check out Parallels or VMware Fusion. Now that I've done that, I rarely boot directly into Windows. The virtual machines work so well for anything but games. And legal exams from what I've been reading on MR.

 

[Sojourn]

Not to hijack the thread, but since my question is related to what's being discussed in here, I figured I'd post here rather than start a new thread:

I'm going to be replacing the internal HDD in my MBP (I have a 160GB currently, and am upgrading to a 320 GB -- I'm very excited!), and I want to clone over both my OS X and Windows XP partitions to the new drive before doing the swap, so that once it's placed in the computer, I can boot up, and go on as if nothing but the size of my HDD had changed.

I have the new 2.5" HDD, and also picked up a 2.5" HDD enclosure to facilitate the clone, and to house my old HDD after the swap, so I can use it as an external. The enclosure is connectable via USB, since any that had FireWire were far more expensive.

My plan was to plug in the new HDD via the external enclosure and format it to HFS+ with Disk Utility. Then, I'd use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone over my current OS X partition. I'd use WinClone to copy over the XP partition.

Since the enclosure is USB, I won't be able to boot off the new HDD to test it, because FireWire is required to use Target Disk Mode, correct? If so, then how can I install the XP partition before installing the HDD in my MBP? Do I need to use the Boot Camp Utility to partition and format the new drive with NTFS? Or can I partition and format using Disk Utility, then create the WinClone image on the HFS+ partition on the new drive, then restore it to the NTFS partition on the new drive with WinClone, all connecting it as an external via USB? Or is there any other way to do this?

Thanks, and I'm looking forward to your responses!

Take care,
Sojourn

EDIT: Also, should I name the new HFS+ partition "Macintosh HD" to prevent filepath problems? Or does it not matter? What will happen when it's swapped into my MBP and used as the boot drive -- will the drive call itself "Macintosh HD" automatically, or will it keep whatever name I've given it?

 

[scottkifnw]

NTFS ? Problem

I just bought a new HD, a nice terebyte drive, and want to get my XP install off the Fat32 portion of my drive, and onto an XP partition on the new external.

If I set aside a 50gb NTSF partition, can I just run something like CCC and transferring the Fat32 XP install? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?

I'm also going to install Vista for dev work (and for fun). I'm thinking another 50gb should be enough to install Vista and make it happy. What do you guys think? Are the "space required" metrics pretty accurate for the vista install?
I wouldn't have too much more on there, just VS'08 and a few other dev tools.

Third question, I'm thinking of toying with W7. Since this will be for toying purposes, I don't really need a large chunk of extra space, just the bare minimum to run it. Anyone see any problems with using the specifications for W7 HD requirements?

I'm itching to get this new drive formatted and partitioned!

Last time I messed with it, NTFS doesn't play with Mac OS. I needed to re-format to FAT32. Check into it before you create more work for yourslef.
sek

 

[Sojourn]

Last time I messed with it, NTFS doesn't play with Mac OS. I needed to re-format to FAT32. Check into it before you create more work for yourslef.
sek

Depends what you're doing with it -- NTFS can be read, but not written to, from OS X.

Take care,
Sojourn