Replacing your Vista System Drive

  • Section(s): Troubleshooting, Misc
  • Published on Jul 29, 2008.
  • Last Modified on Jul 03, 2008.
  • Last Modified by Mitch Tulloch.
  • Rated 5 out of 5 based on 2 votes.
You can use CompletePC Backup to replace your system drive with a larger drive if needed.

Say the system drive on your Vista computer is running out of space, and you’ve run Disk Cleanup but you’re still running short. What can you do?

Replace your system drive with a larger hard drive! First, add a second hard drive to your computer (or connect a large removable hard drive) and use the Backup and Restore Center perform a block-level backup of your entire system drive to this second drive using CompletePC Backup. Then replace your system drive with a new, larger hard drive. Now start your computer using your Vista product DVD and select Repair Your Computer to boot into the Windows Recover Environment, then do a restore to your new system drive from your backup by selecting Windows Complete PC Restore. You may need to reactivate Windows afterwards, but a quick phone call will do this.

About Mitch Tulloch

Mitch Tulloch was lead author for the Windows Vista Resource Kit from Microsoft Press, which is the book for IT pros who want to deploy, maintain and support Windows Vista in mid- and large-sized network environments. Mitch was also the author of Introducing Windows Server 2008 and technical project lead for the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Resource Kit, both books also from Microsoft Press. For more information on these and other books by Mitch, see www.mtit.com .

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