I'm planning on buying a new hard drive towards the end of the summer, and I wanted to know if there is a way to fully transfer all games, saves, and settings from one drive to another. Or do I just have to basically reinstall and start my games from scratch?

As long as you used default install folders, you just have to make sure that the paths are the same. Also assuming you are using the same OS on your new HDD. Also keep in mind, if you are using Steam (or something like Starcraft II or Diablo III), that some games use cloud saving features that mean you don't even have to concern yourself with keeping the save files.

You will have to reinstall your games when you reinstall your OS, but you should be fine transferring saves as long as you use the correct file paths.

I use DriveXML available from runtime.org when I need to do that. I haven't had any trouble with it.

Just clone your old HDD into new one with this:

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/copywipe.php

Be careful because this tool also permanently erases discs - so read manual first.

You also have Clonezilla:

http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php

It's a freeware program developed by the free source community that works similarly to Acronis and offers basically the same functionality.

SaveGameBackup might be of help. I think I tried it years ago, but I don't remember how well it worked. Still, worth trying.

GameSave Manager does a great job at transferring your saves. Back up your saves and restore them onto the new drive. If you kept your installers then you can simply install the relevant game when you want to play it.

Thanks! A program like that is exactly what I was hoping for. My drive is only 500GB right now cause they were so expensive, but now that I have more money I should be able to afford a much bigger one.

Okay, I picked out the new hard drive, but before I buy it, I need to make sure I have an extra cable, don't I? I obviously need to have both of them hooked up at once, and I don't think I have another SATA cable.

Yes, you'll need another one. You could get a USB to SATA adapter, but unless you're lacking in ports, you're better off just connecting it via SATA directly as it's that much faster.

My motherboard has 2 SATA 3 ports, but it looks like one is used by my CD/DVD drive. So do I just disconnect that while I'm transferring data, then reconnect it later?

And what exactly do terms like partition and boot destination mean? All the tutorials I've read just say to make sure the new HD is set as the boot folder or whatever, but they don't explain how to do it.

I feel really dumb asking these questions, especially since I assembled and installed everything myself without trouble a few months ago. I guess having two drives at once is confusing me.

Partitions are sections of the disk you'll have at least one on any disk and possibly more. If you're asking that question then the answer is one to cover the disk. But, sometimes you'll have more than one filesystem on a disk in which case you'll have more partitions.

That should be bootable partition if I'm understanding correctly. And getting that wrong would render the computer unbootable, however it doesn't risk the data and can be easily fixed later on if need be. Generally setting it to be an active partition should do the trick, especially if it's the first and only partition on the disk. If it's a latter partition that can cause problems.

You'd do that in whatever utility you're using to partition the disk. I don't think that you have to do it if you haven't screwed with the disk.

Okay so how do I set the new drive to be the active C: drive that boots the computer? I know you go to disk management under control panel, but I'm not sure where to go from there.

In the future I might be getting a bigger HDD for my PC, but I can't just pop in another drive into my tower because it's HDD cage is full and I don't feel like swapping towers right now. As such I will most likely buy a larger drive(maybe 2TB) and copy the contents/partition of my old drive(500GB) to it. Can I use such a utility to clone the partition onto the new drive and then boot off of it(The HDD I want to replace is a boot drive/partition for one of my OSs.) as per normal?

Also i'd most likely(again due to no room in the tower) need to connect the sata cable to the new drive and the mobo inside the tower and temporarily let the new drive sit outside the case while I copy the contents over(Then i'd take the old drive out of the tower and put the new drive in it's place in the HDD cage.). This won't harm the drive too much in the long run will it? I guess id need to place it(while it's outside the case.) on a flat/stable surface free of static to be as careful as possible, right?