New HDD: Backup and Install suggestions?

[Acert93]

I just picked up a new HDD and am at a crossroads. I have 3 internal HDDs plus one external HDD:

1x 74GB WD Raptor (Currently primary drive; SATA or ATA; C: drive)
1x 80GB Maxtor (Currently a secondary drive; ATA; E: drive)
1x 320GB Seagate Barracuda (New Drive, un-installed; SATA)
1x 300GB External Maxtor On-Touch II (USB 2.0)

My Goals are:

1. A clean OS and Application Install.

2. Save all my data on the primary HDD (74GB Raptor). I have a ton of files and don?t have the time to weed through and organize them at the moment. I need to be able to access the files this weekend as well as be able to re-incorporate them into newly organized system storage scheme.

3. Create a ?ghost? (or similar) of my fresh install to enable easier/quicker system reinstallation.

In the past I have always just installed a new HDD and use a CD to backup files. That really isn?t an option this time due to the mass of files, so I am debating two options.

Option A) Install the 320GB Seagate as an extra drive (?F:?). Copy my primary drive (74GB Raptor) to the Seagate, and then format / re-install on the Raptor. This seems like a ?fast? solution, keeps my fast Raptor as my primary drive, and gives me space on the Seagate to sort out my mess of files and space for a ?ghost? of my fresh install.

Q: What is the best way to copy all my files over to the Seagate? I need to be able to copy/paste and move files around (hence a ?backup? with *.BAK files won?t work, but manually copying often fails due to the OS actually using files).

Option B) Make the Seagate my new primary HDD and move the Raptor as a secondary drive.

Q: Will I run into issues making the Raptor a secondary drive? Any tips/how-tos on this? I have never made a primary drive a secondary drive while there was still content on it.

Right now Option A sounds the easiest and best use of my resources. And copying files from the Raptor (C to the Seagate should be extremely simple with little stress.

Q: What applications do people suggest for making a backup of my fresh install? I have heard of Ghost but I have never used it.

Thanks for your tips and suggestions! (Windows XP Pro SP2)

 

[tk11]

Keeping the raptor as primary makes sense.

The best way to copy the files to the seagate would be to install the drive and create a single ntfs partition. The drive will then appear in explorer so you can copy files with ease. Once you have the files off the raptor you can reformat it and reinstall windows. When you have everything up and running the way you want it you can use ghost (or other imaging software) to create an image of the raptor on any of the other drives with enough free space.

If you plan on storing both the system and data on the raptor you may want to repartition the drive so that you can restore an image of the system partition without overwriting any data. This also may reduce the size of the image by quite a bit depending on the amount of data you intend keep on drive.

As an added precaution you may also want to store an image of the raptor before you format it. With an extra 300GB, space wont be an issue and you can just delete it a week or two after your sure everything is ok with the new setup.

 

[Acert93]

Thanks

Any suggestions on mirroring software? Something free would be great. I have seen a couple links to stuff like TwinDisk and wondering what others recommend?

 

[tk11]

The only one I've ever used is an old version of ghost so I couldn't say.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Seagate seatools is free and will let you do multiple things to your new drive including cloning partitions.