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So, I made the rookie mistake of not making my 'main' partition the leftmost one, and now I need to move it. Reinstalling would be a very large hassle I would rather avoid if possible, so I'm looking to safely move the existing installation.

I've seen a lot of information about this. I read that simply using a tool like GParted or DriveImage XML to just move the Windows partition to the left will cause it to fail to boot. But I've also seen such tools suggested when users ask about moving an entire OS installation cleanly from one drive to another in a way that avoids all these issues, so I feel like I'm missing something obvious about this process.

From what I've read, the issue seems to be that the boot record is pointing to a specific part of the drive to boot from and doesn't get the memo when you move it. Thus, when you try to boot, it looks for it in the old spot and can't find it.

But my main question is, wouldn't this also apply to moving the entire install to a new clean drive, since it's either:

  • A) Moving the boot sector too, which hasn't been updated and would therefore be invalid, or

  • B) Not moving the boot sector, just the main C:\ partition, but then how would it even boot at all?

I tried to dig deeper but so much information I'm reading is totally conflicting.

Any hard info or links to further reading on the subject would be much appreciated!

robinCTS
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Hellow12327
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1 Answers1

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It mostly depends on what OS you are dealing with. If your "main" partition is Windows XP then moving it is difficult and likely won't boot right off. More recent Windows systems can be moved more easily, but depending on how they were installed may have a "system partition" that must be preserved as it is actually the main boot partition, even though it is relatively small. parted or gparted are used by nearly every Linux install to make room on a disk to dual boot. Afterward the moved or edited partition usually needs to have a Windows chkdsk scan run on it. Sometimes (fairly rare) Windows won't run it automatically and will tell you that you need to run the Windows installation media. You probably don't need to reinstall, just boot some media (CD, USB, external drive, etc.) and run chkdsk on the partition.

As always, be sure you have a good backup of everything you care about as individual circumstances vary.

ZuberFowler
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