Clone and Expand XP

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

I recently decided that it would be prudent to replace the hard drive and
increase the available space on an Acer Aspire 3610 laptop, which was dual
boot at the time.

Windows folks periodically cleanse their hard drive: wipe the hard drive,
re-install their operating system, and then re-install every last
application that they need. This is a very foreign way of thinking in the
Linux world, as the folks on this list will know. I wanted some way of
avoiding that process on this laptop.

After a week of tinkering, I put together a procedure for doing that,
which is documented in a paper on my academic web page:

Cloning and Expanding a Hard Drive Under Windows XP
http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~phiscock/papers/clone-and-expand.pdf

Why is this relevant to a Linux discussion list? Because Clonezilla and
GParted, used in this exercise, are both linux tools. Also because the
approach could be used to tweak the partition allotment in a dual boot
system. In the process I came across a method of recovering grub, which I
tested (it worked) and is listed in the references.

In the process, I copied my home directory to a backup and then blew away
the Suse linux installation (I could never get it to work at a nice
resolution for the laptop display), but that's not necessary in this
procedure.

Comments welcome, of course.
Peter

-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
http://www.syscompdesign.com
USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
647-839-0325

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