# Selectively "Cloning" part of a Hard Drive **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 30, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selectively-cloning-part-of-a-hard-drive/362712 "2006-06-30T02:22:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![OKFMDOA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a6a055/32.png) [@OKFMDOA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OKFMDOA)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selectively-cloning-part-of-a-hard-drive/362712/1 "2006-06-30T02:22:38Z")
I have a 250GB hard drive which is pretty much full. I’ve gotten a new 80GB drive that I would like to use for my OS (winXP), program files and anything related. I know that it will fit - the “windows” and “my programs” directories contain a total of about 15GB. However, I have a feeling that if I just copy the directories from one disk to the other it will not be bootable. In the past when I have upgraded to larger hard drives, I have used a Seagate utility to clone the entire drive, but that won’t allow me to exclude certain directories on the source hard drive. Any ideas on how I could do this? ---
**Author:** ![xash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/c6cbf5/32.png) [@xash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xash)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selectively-cloning-part-of-a-hard-drive/362712/2 "2006-06-30T05:03:40Z")
Interesting question. Is your 250GB drive partitioned? If it is, copy all your data files from the C: drive to another partition, until you have less than 80GB of used space on your C: drive, then create an image of the C: drive using something like [Acronis True Image](http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/) and restore it to the new hard disk. If your 250GB drive is not partitioned, partition it using something like [Partition Magic](http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/), then follow the steps mentioned above. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selectively-cloning-part-of-a-hard-drive/362712/3 "2006-06-30T05:14:22Z")
You’d be far better off doing a fresh install on the new C drive even if replicating the programs is a PITA. I’ve found at least 70% + of the programs I’ve installed become useless or completely unused over time, so re-installs are not all that painful as I can leave a huge bunch of crap behind, and I consequently get cleaner and faster boots & overall performance… Whatever you do make _sure_ you make the new partition bootable before installing anything. ---
**Author:** ![OKFMDOA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a6a055/32.png) [@OKFMDOA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OKFMDOA)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2006, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/selectively-cloning-part-of-a-hard-drive/362712/4 "2006-06-30T05:45:44Z")
Thanks for the suggestions.