How to Move Windows Vista in Dual Boot to a New Drive

The hard drive stores the data necessary to boot and run the operating system.

To set up a dual-boot configuration, a computer user creates and formats multiple partitions on a hard drive and installs an operating system (OS) to each partition. The computer will then allow the user to boot from either operating system at startup. Windows Vista and Windows 7, or Windows Vista and Windows XP, are both common dual-boot setups.



To move Windows Vista to its own separate hard disk and install it to another machine, you can use disk cloning software to copy the contents of the entire partition to another hard drive.

Things You'll Need

• New hard drive
• Cloning software CD
• Phillips screwdriver

Instructions

1. Turn off the computer, disconnect any cables connected to the rear of the computer and remove the left cover from the case.

2. Touch the chassis or put on an anti-static wrist-strap to protect the components inside the computer from electrostatic damage.

3. 

   SATA cable.

   Trace the data cable connected to the current hard drive to its accompanying slot on the motherboard. Insert a new data cable into an available SATA slot on the circuit board.

4. 

   Power supply.

   Connect the other end of the data cable to the new hard drive. Find an available SATA power cable coming from the power supply. Insert the cable into the hard drive.

5. Confirm the power and data cables are properly secured to the back of the new hard drive. Slide the new disk into an available bay at the front of the computer. Screw the hard drive into place.

6. Reconnect the power cable and any other peripheral devices to the rear of the computer.

7. Turn on the PC. Press the button as indicated on the boot screen to access the BIOS. Enable the new hard disk's SATA controller (e.g. SATA0 through SATA3 or higher). Confirm the BIOS detects the new hard drive.

8. Insert your cloning software's CD into the disc drive. Configure the BIOS to boot from the disc drive. Save any changes and exit from the BIOS.

9. Boot to the cloning software. Select as your source drive the partition where Windows Vista is installed.

10. Select your new hard drive as the destination disk. Instruct the software to format the new hard drive and prepare it for file storage.

11. Check the option to maintain the files on the original disk. You can delete the partition in Windows after you have confirmed that the cloning software has properly transferred over the files to the new hard drive.

12. Confirm your options are correct on the summary page. Click "Finish" to clone Windows Vista to your new disk drive.

Tips & Warnings

• Not all cloning software will provide the option to maintain the files on the original disk. In most cases, the software will do it automatically.

• If Windows Vista is not the primary boot partition on the old hard disk, you may need to perform Startup Repair to restore the boot files.

• The settings on the BIOS setup screen vary from computer to computer. Go to your computer manufacturer's website and look up your owner's manual for more information on configuring the BIOS.

• If you are installing the hard drive to another computer, you will need to perform a repair installation of Windows Vista. You may also need to contact Microsoft to reactivate the OS.

References

• Seagate: How to Install and Troubleshoot Serial ATA (SATA) Hard Drives
• PCStats: Beginner's Guide: Cloning Windows XP