Copying Hard drive

**truckpuller** · April 14th, 2012, 11:26 PM

I have this brand new 1TB hard drive i already have windows 7 64bit loaded on it..is there anyway to copy the windows updates off the old hard drive to the new hard drive..these are sata's by the way and been a long time since i copied files from 1 hard drive to another like since windows 95...lol

**stroyal** · April 14th, 2012, 11:35 PM

You can just copy files, from one drive to another, or you can clone a whole drive, but updates like the ones you get from Windows update are not something you can transfer.

Those were run from an installer program and it isn't on the drive, anymore.
There is no way to find all the parts of the update.

I'm not sure I understand your question though.

If you just want to copy the old drive to the new, cloning is what you want.

Edit
If the old drive has all the updates, the new cloned drive will also.
It will be identical.

**truckpuller** · April 14th, 2012, 11:46 PM

I was just wanting to copy windows updates over to new drive Stroyal to try and save me some time and data usage since my internet connection is via MIFI hotspot 4510L and i have a 5GB data limit per month and anything over the 5GB is 10 dollars for every 1GB over.

I guess i could leave the old hard drive in and use the new hard drive for gaming only offline of coarse in which i would need to load steam on new hard drive.

**RicheemxX** · April 14th, 2012, 11:57 PM

If there isn't a specific reason to remove the old install you could just format the new disk and as Stroyal said clone the old drive onto the new one. You'd be cloning the entire OS, apps and all though. But then you could remove the old drive from the picture all together.

**stroyal** · April 14th, 2012, 11:58 PM

If you think the old drive is clean, I would just clone the drive to the new, then format the old, for a dedicated backup.

These are both the same win 7 installations aren't they?

All hard drive manufacturers, have cloning programs free for download.

If one drive is Western Digital, they have a free Acronis.

I just used it last night, to clone a Death Star to a Western Digital.

I had installed XP on the Desk Star to get a head start on the install, while I was waiting for the Western Digital.

It is really easy and reliable.
I've had good luck with all cloning programs.

**truckpuller** · April 15th, 2012, 12:06 AM

Yea they are both legit windows 7 64 bit, but they are upgrades i had to partion the drive with windows xp pro then stop xp install and installed windows 7 using the upgrade CD on the new hard drive but the old one was just an upgrade and the old hard drive really needs a new reformat done. When i built this computer a couple months ago i just left the hard drive in and fired it up and installed all the new mobo and such drivers. That why i would prefer an all new install of everything and not clone the drive.

If any of this makes since.

**stroyal** · April 15th, 2012, 12:09 AM

I've never done it myself, but AFAIK, you can order all updates from Microsoft, and get it on disk.

Rich might know more, but I've heard it isn't too expensive.
Edit
I understand not wanting to clone. it is something I only do with a relativity new install, that I know is clean.

**RicheemxX** · April 15th, 2012, 12:35 AM

Well you use to be able to download the network installs for almost all of them then you could keep them handy and install them whenever. I'm not sure MS does that now days with Windows 7 but if they did you could have a friend do that along with SP1.

You can get the DVD media from MS through the following link it shows it as a free disk but like $6 for shipping for me anyways Get Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) on DVD

edit: It looks like for some of the updates and security fixes you can still do the offline installs but you'd have to create an entire list of the ones you need and then find someone to download them all for you.

**truckpuller** · April 15th, 2012, 12:55 AM

Thanks guys...you'all are the best.

**RicheemxX** · April 15th, 2012, 01:00 AM

Ok well I actually just found a new tool called Rt7Lite, similar to Nlite and Vlite for XP/Vista its supposed to let you slipstream SP1 and hotfixes into a W7 install DVD. I'll have to check that out to see if it works and if its legit.

But along side that there is tutorial for finding and downloading all the updates using Windows Update Downloader. If you could find someone to try it out and create a disk for you that might be an ideal way to go.

Details on the tools here

**truckpuller** · April 15th, 2012, 01:16 AM

When i had win xp pro and i went to a bigger hard drive i had to slip service pack2 into the windows install disk and i used Nlite i think it was and burned a new windows cd.