These instructions show how you can copy your entire Vista installation with the contents of its partition to another hard drive and sucessfully boot from it. This method uses only the tools found on the Vista Install DVD.

I tried this about a month ago and I tried so many things to fix it, I lost track of what processes actually caused it to work. So, after a few test runs thanks to VMWare, I have been able to pin down the steps required. Most procedures and commands are taken from the blog post and comments at http://geekswithblogs.net/lorint/archive/2006/12/07/100596.aspx. The reason I am re-writing someone else’s work is because their example was for Windows XP. I tried it for Vista Ultimate 32bit and it would not work. I had originally thought bootrec /fixboot solved the problem, but it appears I was wrong : )

1. It’s a good idea to run a program like CCleaner to get rid of any garbage files you don’t want to waste time duplicating first.
2. Stick the Vista DVD in your optical drive, shut down the computer, connect up your new hard drive and power her up.
3. You should be booting the Vista installation process. Select your language, then click Next, then Install. When the license terms come up, press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.
4. Partition and format your new hard drive. Type DISKPART to bring up the relevant Microsoft tool. Use a variation of these commands. Make sure you identify which hard drive is which with LIST DISK
   • LIST DISK
   • SELECT DISK 1
   • LIST PARTITION
   • CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
   • LIST PARTITION
   • SELECT PARTITION 1
   • ACTIVE
   • FORMAT QUICK
   • LIST VOLUME
5. Determine which partition is your old and which is your new one on the new hard drive with this tool. In my case it was C: and I: respectively.
6. Type exit to terminate DISKPART and type
   ROBOCOPY C:\ I:\ /e /efsraw /copyall /dcopy:t /r:0 /XJ
   replacing the first drive letter as the source and the second, the destination partition. This command could run for a couple of hours, it depends on the volume of data.
7. When that’s finished, exit the command prompt and turn off the computer. Disconnect the old hard drive. Start the PC up and boot from the Vista DVD again.
8. This time, select your language etc and on the next screen click ‘Repair your computer’
9. A dialog box will pop up saying ‘Scanning for Windows installations’, then it will report ‘Windows found problems with your computer’s startup options. Do you want to apply repairs and restart your computer?’. Click ‘Repair and restart’
10. Cross your fingers

Tags: bootrec, hard drive, vista

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 10:23 pm and is filed under Howto. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.