2015 upgrade

[JamminR]

TLDR - Short Story - I may be gone a few days - upgrading primary PC.

Long story -
So I got a new HD for Christmas.
I'm putting it in my main PC.
Other than in a hot swap raid corporate environment, or personally using imageX to create a disk clone for a single partition machines, I've never tried cloning multiple partitions, using any software, before.
In the past when upgrading my personal computers/drives, I simply put in the new one and go with a clean install, then keep 'old' drive to get stuff off of for (months/years) to come.

Though my gut is telling me to do the same this time, I decided I'm going to try use WD's 'free' Acronis and make a clone of current drive.
I figure this way, I'm sure to learn how to break, and then fix, items in the future.
(On the job hobby PC training; yay!)

One caveat I'm already not sure of is that I don't think this 'free' version allows me to re-size partitions on the new/restored drive when I restore/clone.
Many years ago, I partitions C for 35gigs. Many years later, even with every single option I've done to redirect data/apps to another larger drive, it's killing me to keep 3-5gb free.
So I was hoping to increase my C to 128G.
(Why 128? Because i'm considering getting a 128GB SSD sometime soon, but, that's a challenge for another day)

So, I'll either see most of you in hours, or I'll see you in days (I work this week, so time would be limited to spend on it after tonight)

[WispySkies]

You should have just bought a really expensive toaster with golden toasts that codes for you. No need for a new HD when you got toast.

[Megiddo]

Forget the toast, handerpants is where it's at -- http://www.amazon.com/Accoutrements-11951-Handerpants/dp/B002Q0L6UK

[roastchicken]

Can confirm; handerpants solved all of my problems.

[JamminR]

Hmm. Not sure about handerpants. Though functional, not practical for current application.
However, now that I've looked, there are several other 'related' products I might be interested in.
None of them related to this topic 'at hand'.

Which brings me back on topic.
I'm not yet fully operational.
Drive space logistics were more challenging than I expected/remembered.
Though the drive cage I have fits multiple drives, all but 2-3 would bunt against the vid card I have.
So, after spending most of Sunday evening disassembling and cleaning the PC, Monday re-assembling and starting Acronis, I found it sucked. Loudly.

Decided I'd boot up UBCD to see what tools it offered for drive cloning. Started a full clone using Clonezilla.
I must say, the Parted Magic system is awesomely wonderful. Free older version on the UBCD.

Though Clonezilla didn't easily allow me to clone the old partitions to the new, Gparted partition editor allows for simple copy/paste from smaller to larger.
Some learning curve though. Still trying to figure out how to copy the boot sector.

I hope to be done by new years eve.
May seem like lots of trouble, but I always learn neat new stuff when I break my PC.

(PS - this copy of PartedMagic has Firefox to keep me entertained while stuff copies/deletes/wipes/handerpants)