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My 1TB hard drive is failing. I'm guessing that some of the Windows Vista are on bad sectors as the PC is not booting. (Hangs when reading files for Safe Mode).

I bought a 2TB hard drive. I want the 2TB drive to be the new primary booting drive. I formatted it using my Windows 7 work computer.

The CD drive is not working on the Vista PC, so I can't use the Windows Vista CD to boot from.

I have access to a Dell Windows 7 workstation. I have access to an HP Windows 7 laptop.

How do I format the new hard drive to boot on Windows 7?
(Last time I did this I could execute format /S from the command window.)

I've tried Recuva and after 3 hours it runs into communication errors and fails with nothing written to the 2TB drive. I tried EaseUS Todo application and it froze the computer after 3.5 hours and nothing written to the 2TB drive.

The old 1 TB drive can be accessed, but it can't be booted from.

Do I need to make the new 2TB drive bootable before copying data from the old drive?

Also, I would like to clone the applications on the old 1TB drive to the new 2TB drive. The cloning tools want to make the new drive the same capacity as the old drive.

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2 Answers 2

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I would recommend using RAWCOPY from Roadkil.net - I've used it many times and it doesn't matter if the source drive has bad sectors - it will try to recover them and move on. I find it works VERY well so long as your hard drives are 2TB or less (and you say they are). You need to attach BOTH drives to a computer and make sure NEITHER is booted to (find another desktop computer or use a couple of USB adapters). The copy process is very fast (via SATA, at least 100 MB/sec in most cases, meaning a 1 TB drive should copy in under 3 hours. Here's the thing - if the old drive cannot be booted due to corruption, then the drive won't be bootable either - it's an EXACT copy of everything readable from the old one. Assuming you do this, after you're done and when it get it booting, Windows will still report it's running on a 1TB PARTITION but on a 2TB drive. You can then easily extend it from Disk Management OR create another logical drive, whichever you prefer.

Keep in mind, Windows 7 is not DOS - you can't make it bootable without installing Windows on it. Format /S was done 20 years ago for DOS - WAY different system.

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  • I had to do a full, long format on the 2TB destination hard drive. The RAWCOPY worked excellent. Now to test the copied drive in the Windows Vista box.
    – Thomas Matthews
    Jun 2, 2015 at 18:17
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Windows Vista/7 creates boot partition in addition to it's own system partition, so no matter how often you do format /s it won't work.

If you have access to another computer you may want to try this instead: http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-CLEAN-Install-Windows-Vista-directly-from-H/

My recommendation would be to install Windows first and after that connect the failing HDD and try to recover as much data as possible. You can then do quite a lot without specialized tools, you just need time...

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  • How do I install Windows Vista on a drive using a Windows 7 computer? My CD drive on the old Vista computer is not functioning.
    – Thomas Matthews
    Jun 1, 2015 at 14:31
  • Follow the link in my answer. The method described there works on any windows computer from XP onwards, and is valid for installation of windows vista/7 at least. In case it's needed: Windows xp installation from hdd requires formatting the partition containing install files in FAT32, rest stays similar..
    – AcePL
    Jun 1, 2015 at 16:32

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