I have a 2007 Gateway GM5688E. I got it at a steal because it was set up with an analog TV tuner and everything went digital. It's running Windows Vista and has a 320GB drive. I have less than 1% free space available.

I'd like to put in a terabite drive, install windows 7, and somehow move my programs over from the old operating system. I have a lot of weird specialty programs like Bantam Grass/Twig/Scatter, windome, Tree Generator. I have over 80 custom levels for Uru installed. I have Bryce with all the challenge mats and spent weeks loading Tony Lynch woods into material groups 1 page deep. Moving everything and re-entering CD keys will take literally months of work. Is there a program that will copy my operating system to the other drive?

Watch out for 32 bit apps on Win7...I have found a lot of them don't like Win7. Find a friend with Win7 and try and install them on that before...I've found I'm gonna need an XP computer to run my dearly beloved first modeling app, Imagine3D, because although I can work around it, stuff that happens in Win7 makes modeling take about 3 times as long and it ceases to be fun.. ...

Just throw it away and start over..J/K.

Have you considered an external hard drive? I just bought a seagate 2 terabite drive at Wally World  for $119 US plus tax. It plugs and plays in a USB 2 socket and is very compatible with Vista (which I have on my laptop). Bought a second one to back up the first and a USB Hub is pretty cheap, then you only have to use up one USB socket on your comp.

If you move your music files and and art project files to the external HD, including renders and photo files that you have on your C drive, I'm guessing you'll have more than enough space left on your comp. Caution: If you do this be sure to copy and paste the files to the new HD before deleting them from your C drive! (Yes, I lost some stuff like that once when the power went out.)**
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I'm sticking with Vista, myself. To quote Dr. Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory":

"My new computer came with Windows 7 . Windows 7 is much more user-friendly than Windows Vista. I don't like that."

John

Bantam grass - now theres a blast from the past!

Indeed...I think I posted about it many years back whn someone in my other Forum/Gallery, Imagine3D, discovered it for veg deprived Imagine users...haven't tried it on Win7 but it worked fine on XP...dunno if it survived the burglary that forced me onto a  Win7 computer.. ...

I'm trying to think what I should recommend for you.  For me it would a piece of cake, but its what I do for a living.

I'll give you a couple of scenarios and let me know which you feel comfortable with and we can move from there.

1st.  Your PC is already 4 years old, so the most important thing to do right now is to back it up.

Hard drive reliability is suspect after 3 years.  If you are lucky you may get 5-6 years out of a hard drive and that is pushing it.

So what to do? Here are a couple of scenarios for you.

Scenario 1: Clone your existing drive to a new hard drive, with this method you can clone your entire hard drive to a bigger drive in 30mins or so and  you will be up and running with a brand new hard drive and lots of disc space.  Depending on your budget I would recommend a Western Digital Black series drive (best performance), Western Digital Blue Series (Good Performance), Western Digital Green (Normal Performance but the cheapest).

Scenario 2: Clone your existing drive to a new hard drive, boot into Vista and insert the install disc for Windows 7 this method will first scan your existing installation and warn you of any incompatibilites.  Make sure to use Professional or Ultimate as these versions will allow you to run many XP programs in Windows XP Mode, this option is not available in Home Premium.  This is the easiest upgrade route while retaining as much of your old system as possible.

Scenario 3: Remove old hard drive, install new hard drive, install Windows 7.  Purchase an external hard drive enclosure and put your old hard drive in there, you will have access to your old data but not be able to run the old installed programs, but you will have a clean fresh installation.

Tools:
Windows 7 Compatiblity Checker.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx

Cloning - use Clonezilla its free and does the job.
http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

ImgBurn free burning application you can use it to burn the Clonezilla ISO image to a CD or DVD
http://www.imgburn.com/

If you dont plan to do any of the mentioned scenarios above, at the very least, go out and purchase an external hard drive and backup everything from your current hard drive to that one.

My motto is, "its not a question if a hard drive will fail, but when will it fail?" all hard drives fail, that it the nature of a mechanical device such as a hard drive.

I hope I didnt over whelm you.

I've got two WD 600GB external USB hard drives with my music and videos. The second drive was running a norton backup of the first and my C documents. Norton and I are no longer speaking. They tried to run my canceled bank card a month early for payment then had the nerve to email me about it. Running the bill a month early could have played havoc because the card was tied to my checking account. I got an american express gift card big enough to pay for the subscription and ran it two days before the expiration.  They tried to get me to buy Utilities that were already included in 360, then they tried to tack on a PC insurance and raise the price another $10. They refuse to accept a card that Amazon has no trouble running. They insist I give them an active credit card tied to a large account they can hold and automatically bill for multiple years. The IRS throws away my bank information every year because they don't want to be responsible. Does norton really believe their security is that good? I don't so I guess I need a good backup program as well.

I have most of my Bryce work in My Documents. It takes up 148GB on C:.  The first Western Digital only has 47GB free so no way it's all going to go. I can really see myself filling all the space back up in six months.

I was already leaning toward Cloning the vista system to a terabyte drive. The WD caviar Black 1TB SATA drive sells for $89.99 I can swing that. Once there I don't know if I can go any farther. From the System Control Panel I get the Gateway is running an AMD Phenom(TM) 8400 Triple Core Processor 2.10 GHz. System Type says it is a 32bit operating system. The last time I upgraded from 98 to XP it lasted about a month then crashed. I wound up reformatting and installing everything again anyway.

If you do nothing else but buy that $89.99 hard drive and use Clonezilla to clone from Old drive to New drive thats all you need to do.

That is the simplest solution.

I clone machines at work and at home all the time.  Never had a system fail due to cloning.

I have a 1TB Freecom external that is awesome. Thoroughly recomend it.

BTW....you make custom levels for URU-Ages of MYST?????????

Does anyone use services like Carbonite for off-site backup? The only hesitation I can see is wondering how long the company will exist, and if they would warn customers of an impending closing.

I'll chime in and say I've used cloning to move files from an old computer to a new one with no problems, but I just did personal files, because it was from an ME machine to an XP machine. (And if Win7 is worse than Vista, XP is going to have to limp along for a while longer.)

Years ago, a professional artist gave me some advice that has kept my HD much leaner. When I finish a project, I save it to a thumb drive and delete it from the main computer. With all the incremental saves and copies of large texture files, this really does save a lot of space. Truth is, I've yet to feel the urge to revisit any old projects, but it makes deleting it a lot less stressful. ;)

Thank's for the tools. That sounds like the way to go.

Chris, Check out this site http://www.guildofwriters.com/  I don't agree with the politics but the tools are in the wiki and Uru has been open sourced by Cyan.

scanmead, I had music on winamp before they got scared and shut it down. Being the parinoid type I feel anything put on an offsite backup is basically shared with the world. When Geocities went yahoo then went pay only I tried to upgrade. I paid my money then they told me they had lost all my files but I could build a brand new one in a jiffy with their custom templates. As you can see I have a pattern of people promising something in print then failing to come through. My personal choice is to backup myself.

Analog-X64.

I follow your line of thought and agree Win7 ultimate is nice because things can be run in XP compatibiliy mode which should be the answer to older non-compliant programs.

What I don't grasp is cloning to program files to external drive.  Seems to me that registry pointers would be in conflict with the internal C: drive when opening an application. 

Example of what I don't grasp:  if you clone C: drive does it now act as a C:drive or does it still have its unique drive address?   If it retains its original drive designation, then how will would a program file on the cloned drive know to look for info on that drive and not the internal C: drive where pointers may be aiming?

Good point about the older programs. I have a couple of small utilities that have been sold multiple times, and no longer exist in their original form. A couple of them are now owned by copywrite-nazi types, who I could see objecting to a 10-year-old program they not only didn't create, but no longer support. And which, by the way, function better, with less memory, than the new souped-up versions. 

Willie,

No you clone the system to a bigger internal hard drive. A cloning program copies the system files that windows refuses to create. You used to have to set switches to make a drive master or slave. I think SATA is cable select so whatever is plugged into the first cable is the boot drive. You create the bootable CD with the imgburn software of the clonezilla software. Turn off the power. Install the new SATA drive. Restart the computer and press F8 during the boot. Change the boot device so you boot from CD instead of drive C:. Restart. Run Clonezilla and copy C: to D:. Shut Down. Take out drive C: and install drive D: on C:'s cable. Restart. Press F8 and set drive C: as your boot device. If everything works you should boot from the new disk. If it doesn't you can reinstall old C: no harm, no foul. If everything works you can save old C: as a backup or plug it in D:, Fdisk it and reformat it to use for other storage. If you don't repartition it windows has system files hidden on it that will conflict with your new drive.

Easier than removing your own kidney by a bit.

Thanks, Electro. I've been playing MOL for about a month now.

I always thought Carbonite was for freezing star pilots who didn't keep up payments to Jabba the hut...;)

Well, all the relevant points have been covered. As for the bank putting through checks, unfortunately, that's a dodge going back years. They did it on purpose, to charge you fees, then you have x number of days to pay the fees, or they'll hit you with another fee. I had a bank do that, and I was losing hundreds each month before I took my business elsewhere.

A big thank you to electro..  Now I understand, and yes that is an easy route to take when you have tons of apps.

@electroglyph good job explaining it.** **

If anyone needs any further explanation or needs instructions on how to do something from Step 1 to completion.  Just let me know.