copying a hard drive

NotMe

My 60GB hard drive is getting fairly full. I was wonder if it is possible to buy a larger drive, say 120GB and copy everything (including the OS) from the 60GB drive to the 120GB drive. Could I do that?

Sniipe

I've never done it but couldn't you buy norton ghost to do it? If u have an OS on it, it will still work after.

John R

I've done that a few times with Win98 and it works fine. AFAIR you can't copy an operating system that is in use, you need to boot from a seperate disk than the ones you are copying to and from, a DOS diskette works fine.

I don't think a straight copy will work with WinXP though, I have never tried it but I am sure I read somewhere that there is a security measure that prevents it from working.

Optikus

There is a Files and User settings transfer wizard in Xp, i myself have never tried it as i have Norton Ghost but there should'nt be a problem doing it this way.

Steoob

no the os wont work at all it remembers the drive is was burned onto originally

you'd have to reinstall it on the new drive... too much bother just get a new 80gb drive

Invader Zim

steoob wrote:

no the os wont work at all it remembers the drive is was burned onto originally

you'd have to reinstall it on the new drive... too much bother just get a new 80gb drive

Ignore him. He's wrong.

Norton Ghost or Powerquest Drive Image will do the job for you.

In fact - most hard drive manufacturers have FREE tools on their websites for migrating enitire OS'es form your old hard drive to their new one.

Invader Zim

You cannot, however, clone you mates hard drive and expect it to work in yours - UNLESS you both have the same motherboard.
But this is a driver issue, and it used to work until NT/2000/Xp came along.

NotMe

Cool, I searched for freeware alternatives to Norton Ghost and I came across this...http://www.miray.de/download/sat.hdclone.html. It only allows you to copy a smaller disk onto a larger one and you have to partition the extra space yourself but it should do the job. And it's only a 473kB download.

I want to replace the drive rather than adding an extra one because I haven't got space for another drive and I can't reinstall XP because it came preinstalled so I don't have a disc.
Now that I think about, an external HD mightn't be a bad idea.

(insert name)

I want to update my win 98SE pc to xp home (p1rated of BearShare!!).

how can i do this without losing any files?

i have a cd rw drive if thats any help...

please help

Optikus

(insert name) wrote:

I want to update my win 98SE pc to xp home (p1rated of BearShare!!).

how can i do this without losing any files?

i have a cd rw drive if thats any help...

please help

You can back them up on CD or create a new partition to back up your files and format the partition with 98 on and then install xp on that.

(insert name)

thanx 4 th advice but its a very very small HD (8GB!!!), which i plan to update at a later date so i dont think that method would work and also i dont know how

Mad Mike

I've done this with BootitNG:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
Available for a 30 day free trial. Since you don't need the program after the copy you won't actually have to buy it if you are only doing one move.

Bootit actually runs outside of windows - it creates its own bootable CD or floppy and runs from that.You can copy boot partitions and complete operating systems etc. Not for the faint hearted though. Bootit NG is an immensely powerful program with economical documentation - You can use it to do just about anything to hard disks and partitions but if you don't know what you are doing you could do major damage.

TimTim

I've ghosted a windows 2000 machine before using Norton Ghost and it works perfectly. The only reason it would fail is: your putting it in a different machine (windows will die if there is a different mobo can't remember the exact reason)

I'm not sure if this effects ghosting but all machines have a unique id number generated at install and if this machine is on a network ie win2k or higher in active directory and you have two machines with the same unique id, **** falls down. So if you are doing that with a machine google for sysprep (I think thats the name) and run it first.

But really if its a home machine buy/copy/steal/warez however you get your software just get a copy of Norton Ghost and do it that way. Just don't change any hardware beforehand.

NotMe

(insert name) wrote:

I want to update my win 98SE pc to xp home (p1rated of BearShare!!).

how can i do this without losing any files?

i have a cd rw drive if thats any help...

please help

You can just install XP over 98. You won't lose any files.

Now **** off out of my thread.

NotMe

Mad Mike wrote:

I've done this with BootitNG:
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/
Available for a 30 day free trial. Since you don't need the program after the copy you won't actually have to buy it if you are only doing one move.

Bootit actually runs outside of windows - it creates its own bootable CD or floppy and runs from that.You can copy boot partitions and complete operating systems etc. Not for the faint hearted though. Bootit NG is an immensely powerful program with economical documentation - You can use it to do just about anything to hard disks and partitions but if you don't know what you are doing you could do major damage.

I've actually used BootItNG before for partitioning a drive. I didn't know you could use it for copying disks.

Mad Mike

Hello NotMe, glad you realised I was responding to your move an operating system query and not to the loser who is trying to install a stolen version of XP.

If you have used bootitNG before you will be familiar with its utilitarian interface. It should be safe enough as long as you don't mess around with the existing disk. I can't find my copy but you can definitely use it to copy a partition which is what you want to do. Vague memory is something along the lines of:

-Boot from floppy containing bootit NG
- Go to Partition maintenance.
- Create new partition comprising all of your new disk. I think you have to format this as a bootable partition - I can't be sure
- Copy partition from old to new.

This is hazy emory but I'm sure you'll figure it out.