changing hard drives

[rogerdee]

i have my hard drive partitioned in to four so i can put games pictures films in the different drives.
My problem is i didn't make my c drive big enough for Windows ep and all that goes with it and now
its full.can i copy my c drive on to a separate hard drive then use that as the c drive by renaming it
to c and using that to run windows? or can i copy my c drive to a empty portion of the bigger drive then rename that c?.
would this work? or will i need to reinstall windows and all the other bits?
Basically i need a bigger c drive and am looking for the easy way out with out losing any of the links etc
for the other stuff on the other drives

[BaldEagl]

You can mirror your C drive onto another clean, formatted hard drive.

If you are using SATA drives, install the new drive, mirror the C drive over, then go to the BIOs to re-assign the new drive as the first boot device.  Then you can clear the (previous) C partition on the old drive.  Drive letters will automatically re-assign.

If you're using ATA drives, put the new drive in the slave position first, mirror the C drive over, then swap the dives around on the ATA cable.  Then you can clear the (previous) C partition on the old drive.  Drive letters will automatically re-assign.

Most new retail drives come with mirroring software.  If it's an old, or OEM drive you can probably find free mirroring software at downloads.com

Of course, make sure the the computer is powered off with the power cord disconnected and touch the chassis to discharge any static electricity before physically installing or swapping drives.