Ghost XP to new drive

Kernel

Right lads, I need a little help with this one before I mess everything up. I got a new SATA hard drive, and I want to use Norton Ghost to copy the entire contents of my existing ATA C: drive to the new one, and boot from that. I'm using Windows XP.

I know how to do the whole Ghost thing, but what I dont know is this - once I have transferred the contents of C: over to the new drive, how do I go about making that the boot drive and the old C: drive just a normal hard disk? Do I have to change the mbr or bootlist or something? I don't want to go through the hassle of doing an entire new install of windows and all my apps.

Thanks for any help.

Asok

Ghost should automatically mark the relevent partitions as they were on the old disk to slap in the old on just make sure the sata one is first on the boot order in the bios and the old one should just show up as a drive that you can format or partition or race across the alkali flats

CyberGhost

you have to install a bootloader like powerquest's bootloader, or you can hide the old C: partition , with partition magic DOS

SwampThing

CyberGhost wrote:

you have to install a bootloader like powerquest's bootloader, or you can hide the old C: partition , with partition magic DOS

That's compete arse! Just put the new drive higher in the boot sequence in the BIOS.

Jeez, this is WORSE advice than 'ah, you'll have to reinstall everything, bud'!
If you don't know, don't offer advice!

What's that old saying 'better to sit quiet and let everyone think you're an idiot than open you mouth and confirm it'

Kernel

Heheh. Ok, thanks guys for the response. I'm gonna go with Asok and put the SATA higher in the BIOS bootlist. Gonna try this tonight after work hopefully. Thanks again.

jonski

I'm gonna be doing something along the same lines during this week . I want to disconnect my 2 ide drives and install XP pro onto my new sata .Then reconnect the 2 IDE drives and transfer what ever files I need accross before formatting them . Three questions to go with this ..
1: When I start off I want the sata drive to be c: , will I have that option seeing that I already have it installed as J ?
2:Because it used to take ages before to defrag I got into the habbit of partitioning(that word is long enough to be welch ) , plus i could format c: and still have whatever files I wanted to on the other drives ....does this still hold true ?
3:After I install XP pro and register it , what happens when I format in future , do/can I re-register ? or how does that work ?

Thanks in advance

John.

ps: not trying to hi-jack the thread , just thought it would fit in here without starting a new one .

gaui3d0pnbz86o

yup all you need to do is put the drive in a hight boot squence alright! worst case senario i can think of is you be shown two bootable drives, ie select which version of windows you wish to load(same screen you would see if you have the recovery screen set to boot too), just select the right one!

this can be disabled by going to start-> right click on my comp->advanced->startup and recovery-> detick the thime to show list of operating systems and select the default operating system from the drop down menu!

Dman_15

i need to do this aswell. Are there any "free" alternatives to norton ghost or is it free also?

Stoner

Lads, I'm being carefull not to pretend that I know exactly whats going on here. I had terrible trouble when i changed over a drive with norton ghost. (BTW i just changed the pin outs on the ide drives to set the new one as master and the old one as slave when i was finished). I got sorted out in the end thanks to help from the guys here, but I had alot of trouble with trying to get the new drive to be the new C drive, in the end i had it sorted but loads of my programs were stuffed and my reg was knackered , full of dead links ( as the drive letters went all over the place)
What i am trying to say is, IMO norton ghost can work, half work and fail, I'm not hanging the SW here , just be carefull with it, sounds and looks like its doing exactly what you want it to do "replacing c drive with a new c drive option" make sure to have all your Ts crossed

SwampThing

Lads, I'll give you my opinion on this and you can take it or leave it.

You have a new, bigger HDD that you want to make you C drive and use your existing drive as a slave - this seems to be the most common scenario faced by people. Even if the current HDD is partitoned (C for OS and a D), this doesn't change the methodology to get the job done.

Technically, to use Norton Ghost to do this job, you'll need a third drive or a partiton on a non-OS disk big enough to take the image of the C drive. Norton cannot 'clone' from drive to drive. Casper XP is the guy for this job and it works very very well.

First, make an image of the PARTITON of the drive you want to clone. Even if the C drive takes up the full HDD, only choose to image the PARTITION, otherwise, you'll make a sector-by-sector image of the drive, taking up excatly the same amout of space as the size of the drive.
Second, physically install new HDD, ensuring jumpers are correct if IDE, and make sure it appears second in the BIOS boot sequence, behind CDROM.

Then, boot from Ghost CD, and restore DISK from image. This creates a partition the full size of the new disk and restores the contents of the image to it.
If you need to partiton the new drive as well, the choose restore PARTITON and choose the size required. Then, look after the rest of the space once the OS boots.

Another 2c of opinion. Acronis is a much better tool for this type of work than Ghost - it will do the 'cloning' thing - same as Casper, it's platform independant and it's only about €50.

I've done this heaps - in every possible config I can imagine anyway. No doubt someone out there has a 'non-standard' setup to throw a spanner in the works!

jonski

tbh it ain't that big a deal for me , back in the good olde days ( wheres me short pants ) I would format every 8 weeks or so for no particular reason but I got older and windows got more stable . Now , ( in my old age ) I am at the stage of having an OS installed since 10 Jan 04 ( yes i was sad enough to check it ) and am approaching this with minor trepidation , so I was thinking seen as how I have HD space to spare and then some maybe I should throw on a ghosted image of the OS to make it handier in future .

Kernel

SwampThing wrote:

Technically, to use Norton Ghost to do this job, you'll need a third drive or a partiton on a non-OS disk big enough to take the image of the C drive. Norton cannot 'clone' from drive to drive. Casper XP is the guy for this job and it works very very well.

Ahh, thanks for the info SwampThing, I was going to delete loads of stuff to accomodate the Ghost image, but looks like I can use this Casper XP to do a straight swap. Good info, I'll let you all know how I get on tonight.

Asok

Ahm yes norton ghost can clone from hard drive to hard drive.

SwampThing

Asok wrote:

Ahm yes norton ghost can clone from hard drive to hard drive.

Can it? - haven't used it in a long long time. If so, I stand corrected.

TimTim

umm, what about the fact windows XP only recognises SATA as a boot device during install after using a driver disk?

SwampThing

That hasn't been my experience. Yes, if you're using RAID, but not for a single drive. Possibly a motherboard-specific issue but I haven't seen that.

jonski

jonski wrote:

2:Because it used to take ages before to defrag I got into the habbit of partitioning(that word is long enough to be welch ) , plus i could format c: and still have whatever files I wanted to on the other drives ....does this still hold true ?
3:After I install XP pro and register it , what happens when I format in future , do/can I re-register ? or how does that work ?

Thanks in advance

John.

.

Anyone have an opinion on this as tomorrow ( today ) is D-day .

John

Kernel

jonski wrote:

Anyone have an opinion on this as tomorrow ( today ) is D-day .

John

Partition magic has put an NTFS partition onto my brand spanking new Western Digital, and it is formatting as we speak... I shall let you know what happens (worst case scenario from work tomorrow!). Really have to stop getting around to doing these things so late at night though!

ozmo

Kernel wrote:

Partition magic has put an NTFS partition onto my brand spanking new Western Digital, and it is formatting as we speak... I shall let you know what happens (worst case scenario from work tomorrow!). Really have to stop getting around to doing these things so late at night though!

I have to do a similar job - I'd be interested in how you manage to get XP to boot. Once it sees there is a different IDE interface it will blue screen (at least Win2K did for me last time I tried this).
I'm planning to do an XP recovery from the CD's to see if I can get XP to boot again but keeping registry & installed programs functioning. Dont want to reinstall xp (complex installation).

Let us know how you get on.

SwampThing

Something that might come bite, but really is reserved for the off-the-shelf PC's it this; Some pre-installed systems have a wee (16Mb or so) DOS partition BEFORE the primary partition on the disk. When XP/Win2K installs, it sees this and writes a boot.ini file to cater for it. The boot.ini will resemble this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

The partition(1) points to the second partiton on the disk. If you clone an install like this onto a new HDD, it's possible you'll get BSOD because it cannot find an XP install on partiton(1). You might need to modify boot.ini to point to partiton(0).

This is just a possibility.

jonski

Right , well not being one to hang about , and with the whole day to myself , off I went .

First off , one last check to make sure I had everything I needed ( cigs and coke ) . All the programmes I wanted reinstalled with their folders moved to a safe place , all old e-mails backedup and so on .

K , shut down pc , crack it open , disconnect the too old ide drives and the modem from the back plus that old USB hub . Restart , into Bios , tell it to boot from CD Rom and inform it of the sata drive , save and restart . Badabing , load on windows xp pro sp1 , as she starts to reboot , back into bios and tell it to boot from sata drive , save and exit and back to the windows installing she goes . Install SP2 aswell , then drivers ( lan was acting odd didnt want to install but worked it out . Installed Zone Alarm , Norton AV and then put in the eircom CD and got the modem up and running , connected to inet and did the windows update thingy , copied back all my outlook folders and msgs . Reboot , went to "msconfig" turned off all the sh*t* , turned pc off .

Back inside the case , reconnected the old 120 gig ide drive , restart , go into Bios and moved the sata above the ide for boot , save and exit and off she goes , no problems what so ever . Only problem I had was I though if I installed teamspeak I could just copy over the old folder on top of it and it would have all my settings , but it seems not ( bitch)

So that was my morning , how was yours ?

John

ps: back to installing now

SwampThing

Hang on there, just one second, mister!

Where, in your scantly detailed ramblings, is your installation of power-boot-loader-quest-2.7.3.9 into the first primary scsi drive sector :mad:

And, while we're at it; why aren't you on here begging for help because you ran a command, you were given on boards by an expert user, that went something like
'format c: scsi / -make-big -convert-sata -make-my-machine-the-dogs-bollox /quickasaflash /hurryup'

Good on ya jonski! What'd ya think CyberGhost - did he do it right?

jonski

I'm old , I do things the old fashioned way and usually go with the simplest option . When that doesn't work I ask for help here , a call to the house preferably ( by a foxy female that is attracted to middle aged ugly married men , and you would be surprised how hard they are to find ) .

On a side note , when posting I usuallt try to tack mine within a topic that is relevant and being discussed ( to keep the olde mods happy ) but I have noticed that some of my questions are either too stupid to answer or get lost in the translation , anyone fancy a pop at my last two ?

jonski wrote:

2:Because it used to take ages before to defrag I got into the habbit of partitioning(that word is long enough to be welch ) , plus i could format c: and still have whatever files I wanted to on the other drives ....does this still hold true ?
3:After I install XP pro and register it , what happens when I format in future , do/can I re-register ? or how does that work ?

.

John.

Kernel

Well, for myself, I couldn't find Norton Ghost in my CD piles, so instead I downloaded the shareware version of Casper XP. It's a great program, it made an exact copy of my C: drive onto my new SATA (F: drive), in an hour and a half.. unfortunately I fell asleep while it did this. When I woke up this morning, I rebooted, changed the BIOS to boot from the SATA drive and everything seems to be ok..

In fact, Casper XP even swapped the drive letter assignments, so my new F: drive became C: and vice versa. I was expecting the boot up from SATA to be a little faster than from the old IDE, but it didn't seem to be..

I'm wondering if it is still booting from the old drive, but I don't think it is, since it allowed me to rename the WINDOWS folder on the F: drive. Only way to be 100% sure is to remove the old IDE drive tonight after work. But it seems to have worked painlessly.

One piece of advice, if you use the shareware version of Casper, it wont resize the new partition for you. Meaning ,if your new drive is 200gb and your old one is 120gb, it will leave 80gb on your new drive as unpartitioned space. However ,I used Partition Magic to simply join the two together, and now C: shows up as the full 200gb partition.

Seems very painless.. I'll let you all know for sure once I disconnect the old IDE drive.

SwampThing

Kernel, I doubt it's booting from one disk and accessing the OS files on another. It's possible, but highly unlikely. Like the Kerryman with two condoms; pop out the ide, to be sure, to be sure!

For me, a slow boot isn't the end of the world. If you're getting good sustained transfer rates while the machine is up and running - it's all good!

ozmo

Kernel wrote:

... When I woke up this morning, I rebooted, changed the BIOS to boot from the SATA drive and everything seems to be ok..

Great - Win2K bluescreened when I did exactly this couple yrs ago- hopefully my XP will work too.

Kernel wrote:

I was expecting the boot up from SATA to be a little faster... but it didn't seem to be..

Microsoft have a boot time analyser - see here for usage details.
http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootvis.php
My guess is its messenger or maybe spyware trying to access internet before internet is available.
Could also be old hardware - eg. some really old hp cdrw models are supposed to boot quicker if theres a disk in the drive.
Could also be a lack of ram or a defragmented drive. You could also try setting a fixed swap file size.

I'm sure you know this bit - but just in case - run msconfig.exe - remove the junk - there is nothing in the startup tab you can remove that will prevent your pc running - may want to keep antivirus stuff tho.
and of course dont disable services unless sure what they are.

XP Should completly boot between 20 to 35 seconds.

& jonski

jonski wrote:

...and then put in the eircom CD and got the modem up and running..

Maybe get rid of that usb nonsense and use the erthernet port on the modem - no drivers needed - more stable and less cpu overhead.

jus my ideas anyway... ozmo....


---edit----
just read this on the ms site - before someone points it out---
"Please note that Bootvis.exe is not a tool that will improve boot/resume performance for end users. Contrary to some published reports, Bootvis.exe cannot reduce or alter a system's boot or resume performance. The boot optimization routines invoked by Bootvis.exe are built into Windows XP. These routines run automatically at pre-determined times as part of the normal operation of the operating system."
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/sysperf/fastboot/bootvis.mspx

But it was useful to me in indentifying what drivers and software was taking too long to start.

jonski

ozmo wrote:

& jonski

Maybe get rid of that usb nonsense and use the erthernet port on the modem - no drivers needed - more stable and less cpu overhead.
.

I did use ethernet ? , didn't know I wasn't supposed to use the disk that came with it ?

John

SwampThing

If you've clean installed and not messed with network settings, you've ethernet card will automatically be set for DHCP. Your BB modem/router is a DHCP server and all you need to do is plug in the ethernet cable and click on FireFox/IE . It's as simple as that!

jonski

Aha , obviously I didn't know this ( somebody placed it above and beyond the scope of my tech knowledge base , roughly 6" off the ground ) . I have said on another thread I difficult I had found it to installed it through the ethernet when I already had network connection before ie: usb modem , dial up modem ( never throw this out ..this is Ireland ) and a home network .

When I have everything back and running the way I want it , I intend connecting my modem to a router I have here and connecting both pc's to that . Would I be as well off to delete my network connections and uninstall the ethernet card , then reinstall it before connecting all three ?

John.

SwampThing

No, I don't think so. Chances are if your modem has a ethernet port it's a DHCP server and you just run it as I described.
I've a Zyxel model from Esat, the most basic piece of garbage on the planet and it works a treat. Even when the boys are round for games, we use it as a DHCP server for all the PC's and all of them have web access instantly.

You've a number of PC's working in a home network? Do you posess a hub/switch? If so, you're laughing. Connect all PC's and the modem to the hub; set all the PC's ethernet connections to use DHCP and ALL of the PC's will access the web via the modem.

If however the modem doesn't do DHCP or has no ethernet port, in XP just disable the Local Area Connection in Network Connections until you do have a DHCP-enabled router or modem.

jonski

Another question on this before I go ahead with it .......will it effect my ping ?, assuming I have the other pc switched off while playing , online games are my priority .

SwampThing

No, there's no draw-backs to having more than one machine connected to the hub/switch. Obviously, if you're gaming, don't surf on the other machine.

jonski

Good thing your in Dublin , starting to owe you alot of pints

SwampThing

No worries!

jonski

Done , and done ...connected the modem to the hub , the connected both pc's to same and now both have the inet . I need to a firewall on the second pc yet so didn't go into it too much . From both pc's I can access the other , didn't try running any games between them yet either but i presume it will work , thanks again to all .