1. Now it may be that I'm making more of this situation than I need to,
2. Now, OldFogey mentioned a Norton product called Ghost, with which I'm not familiar.
Would it be likely that that product could assist me with this situation ?
3. I guess what I am looking for is someone to 'hold my hand' through this little adventure,
4. Sorry if I seem a little anal about this, but I definitely don't want to screw this system up.
1. Not at all, if you have never done it before, then this is quite understandable.
2. Yes, Norton Ghost will achieve what you want to do.
(although there are also other product which will do the same thing also "possibly even free programs")
but as I only ever use Ghost, then that is the only program I can relate to and recommend.
3. No problem, just read carefully, and anything you don't understand just come back and ask.
4. ditto.
*************
At present you only have one drive split into three partitions, C: D: E:
Basically a restore disc usually only consist of a "Image file" of the C: partition. (When first installed)
And should not effect the other partitions, so you should not lose any data on your D: partition.
(or in some cases "A Clone of the actual HDD" BUT this type of restore/clone is very rarely used and would have to be on a totally different HDD "which you don't have" so it can't be that) so we can forget that.
Mainly only used to Clone one HDD to another. (to copy the entire disc, along with partitions etc)
*************
Firstly, you can't just copy the data from your C: drive onto another drive, "it will not work" it has to be "Imaged" so that it also copies all of the hidden data from the MBR (Master Boot Record)
But, yes you can copy the data from the other two partitions onto the new partitions of your new drives partitions.
Question:
Did your new drive not come with any software to enable you to do this?
If not, then sometimes this is available from the HDD manufacture.
****************************************************************
edit:
Just remembered:
- If you have a DVD burner on your PC, you could backup to DVD,