A year ago I downloaded (from Microsoft) and installed Server 2008 R2 x64. Activation went OK and it was working fine for some time. The problem is that the hard drive (new when installed) is defect. I have to replace the hard drive and the question is: Is it possible to copy contents of the entire hard drive (server - using the program to copy entire disk) to a new hard drive (the new one will replace the old one in the same computer) and then simply reactivate the server? Will this work? System partition will be the same size, the data partition will be resized to a larger partition. Or I have to install to another machine and then connect and transfer everything from the old one? Thank you.

yes you can copy all the content until and unless you don't have bad sector in your source drive.http://www.arabitpro.com

yes you can copy all the content until and unless you don't have bad sector in your source drive.http://www.arabitpro.com

Hello Mag_28! Please give us more information about the machine you are dealing with. is it a home test machine? a production machine? And by writing "using the program" - which program do you mean? NTBackup? Please shed some more light on the dillema so we can offer you a better solution. And btw, bad sectors can (sometimes) be fixed with chkdsk x: /f /r If the disk is bad, than it probably wont fix it for good, but maybe it can help you to copy the data by fixing at least some of the damaged \ corrupted data. Good luck! NE

Hi, Thank you for the post. 1. I suggest you set up disk Raid to provide disk failure redundancy on your new server. 2. Simply copy contents (file level) cannot restore system states. You need to use system image level backup/restore via backup software. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup If there are more inquiries on this issue, please feel free to let us know. RegardsRick Tan TechNet Community Support

Hi, Thank you for the post. 1. I suggest you set up disk Raid to provide disk failure redundancy on your new server. 2. Simply copy contents (file level) cannot restore system states. You need to use system image level backup/restore via backup software. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Restore-your-computer-from-a-system-image-backup If there are more inquiries on this issue, please feel free to let us know. RegardsRick Tan TechNet Community Support

To avoid bad sectors or file system error, you could use build-in defragment tool CHKDSK to check the errors, then you could try some partition software, to clone the disk to the new disk, that will not need reinstall OS, drivers and programs. I have used AOMEI Partition Assistant Lite, it works fine, so I think their full version maybe powerful

To avoid bad sectors or file system error, you could use build-in defragment tool CHKDSK to check the errors, then you could try some partition software, to clone the disk to the new disk, that will not need reinstall OS, drivers and programs. I have used AOMEI Partition Assistant Lite, it works fine, so I think their full version maybe powerful