Upgraded my Boot Drive & used System Image Recovery

[Nightwatch]

I need to change my two ailing Hard Drives tonight. I foresee the stressful couple of hours of work as I need to change my C drive as well.
I've made a system image back-up copy by using the utilies offered by Windows 7 and also created a system recovery disk, which supposedly carry all the necessary tools to initiate/format the HDD and start the transfer of of the backed up image of the computer. Well, all is good when it's said, but considering it's said by Microsoft and with their track record in actually "what they said and what really happened cases" as we all know by now, I'm a bit anxious. Let's see what we'll see.

I have a laptop standing by to access the forum and for all those "part of the life" computing, interneting (hey, I've come up with a new word! ) stuff. I'll report later in the night.

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UPDATE:

Success!!
System image and the System recovery disc that Win 7 had prepared has worked! Actually I struggled more (over an hour time) just to fit the HDDs into the case than dealing with the system image recovery procedure. I have a spacious Lian-Li case case, but it had been designed before these mammoth graphics cards were released, so arranging all those sticking out parts, cables around those cards is a challenge.

I put a 1 Terabyte Western Digital Caviar Black 32 Mb Cache (comes with two processors) as the main C drive, and another Western Digital Caviar Green 750 Gb drive as a Data drive in addition to a same size Hitachi drive. So I have now 2.5 Terabyte HDD array. The both 750 Gb ones will work under ASUS EZ RAID system (enhanced plug-and-play RAID) mirroring each other.

So far, after the system image recovery, which reinstated all my programs, settings and the Windows into the new Hard Drive, it seems everything works OK. I checked some programs, browsers, email clients, Word, etc, even the Zone Alarm Xtreme is working. I think Microsoft has pulled this thing with Win 7. Frankly, I had little hope that it would work before starting this operation. But I need a new case or more likely to get some drilling and sawing and reshaping the case interior.

[audioave10]

Good Luck...Nightwatch.

[Nightwatch]

Thanks audiave10 You were faster than me and posted your good wishes while I was still updating the post.

Yeah, it seems all gone well. I hope this HD (boot drive) will increase the performance further. It has a good size cache, 32 Mb, and comes with 2 processors on the HD, so WD claims that it would make a significant improvement. We'll see. I'll update on how things go.

[rockingmtranch]

Wait! Something with Windows worked? As stated? Wow. Awesome

[Nightwatch]

Yeah, I'm still repeating this at home and around work, that it worked!! I had resigned myself that I would have to do a manual system recovery, installing everything from the beginning. But it went very smoothy and everything took about half an hour.

[audioave10]

Ye, of so little faith....................

[ket]

Good choice for your main HDD, not so good with the choice of the Green drives though, their slow WD Blacks are THE drives to have, fast, reliable, and give even a Raptor a run for its money *sigh* I need to get sitting at my PC again its so much nicer than my laptop, but my laptop is so easy I can slum around almost anywhere with it. Bad laptop, bad

[Nightwatch]

Yup, I know Greens are slower than blacks It was a calculated set-up, coz the Caviar Black 1 Terabyte is the windows and programs/system drive, very fast access with double chips usage, excellent with its motors and housings, etc; yet I am using the Greens just for Raid 0 Mirror Data storage. (I use a dedicated Silicon Image software for the RAID system). Nothing on those Green drives requires very fast access time. On the other hand, Greens are energy efficient and a bit cooler running, so they fit the purpose. No need to pay more for the HDd and then pay even more for the energy and having more heat into the case just for storing data.
But, yes, the Caviar Black is THE drive to reckon with; though it's sometimes a bit noisy when it's under heavy demand. Well, it's a question of give-and-take as always.

[audioave10]

Looks like good choices all around.

[Nightwatch]

Thanks

[ket]

Your WD is noisy? Odd.. my black is always really quiet even under heavy load situations. Have you checked to make sure its not loose in its housing bay or something?

[Nightwatch]

That could be a part in this as well, of course, as you rightly point out, because the case is an all aluminum Lian-Li case, a brilliant (almost) collectors item, albeit an older generation one by definition and therefore lacks some noise-dampening features of the newer ones. Otherwise, the HDD is well placed in its housing very securely, yet, yes it's getting a bit noisy sometimes; however, like everything, this is also a matter of personal judgement as well, I guess I like a bit less noise on the desk next to my ear, while some others may not be that sensitive for it. No bad points for Caviar Black, though, excellent drive.

[ket]

If you want to make your system REALLY quiet google around for some rubber fan lugs. Their really squishy and work perfectly for anything that causes a vibration on the case and uses screws Or, if you want to be cheap go out and buy some superglue and a pack of high quality rubbers (the really squishy ones) just cut some bits up and glue them to the fans around the screwholes

[Nightwatch]

Fans are really very quiet models, which also come with those kind of soft rubber rivets. But you reminded me something, thanks, I should get some rubber washer type things for my HDD housings. Three of them on full metal case do make some vibration noise to my ear.

One thing though, after the OC, when booting or coming from hibernation, all fans (CPU, GPU, case, PSU, RAM fans, all lot) stop for a second or two after and initial wooshh, then everything kicks in again. I think the CPU does not continue during that "breathing" time as I do not see any temp jump immediately during the booting. All very cool and cold. So no problem there I'd assume. Just saying as an observation of the performance.

But coming from sleep state or during a restart, no "stop-and-gear change" is seen.

[rockingmtranch]

A reboot from BIOS does that for me also. Just normal from what I've read.

[ket]

Yep its pretty normal. I think asus done something about that though in a new bios update.