Moving an XP install from one drive to another

ssh · 31-10-2003 03:25PM #1

Fairly simple, I hope.

I have Windows XP pro installed on an ATA-100 drive. I have a 120gig S-ata drive, which works nicely. I want to move my entire windows install from the ata drive to the s-ata drive.

Now I can't just copy the files straight over, windows locks a bunch of them and would prevent that from happening, not forgetting that the boot sector and MBR won't get copied over that way.

Has anyone ever done this? Or am I just better off reinstalling?

fatmander · 31-10-2003 03:39PM

'Tis simple
you need some kind of imaging software, ie Ghost, Drive Image
Takes a bit by bit shot of your drive, places it bit by bit on the new drive
simple to use, and very fast
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/
http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/

ssh · 31-10-2003 03:50PM

Hmmm, that seems like it would do the job okay.

I might give the unix command dd a try. If that fails...

thanks a mil

The Muppet · 31-10-2003 06:45PM

I did the drive image copy routine recently but it didn,t work, Xp halted at the xp screen during reboot of second drive. Gave up then and did a fresh install. Read a few articles on this some say it works ok others say that as xp uses numbers from the hard disk to validate itself it will not work. I was using xp home and it didnt maybe it works on the corporate edition.

fatmander · 01-11-2003 03:16PM

Hey muppet,
I heard that only the latest version of both programs work with XP cuz the NTFS file structure is slightly different from the NTFS with win2k.
I am using ghost 2003 on XP pro and I haven't had any problems yet

Capt'n Midnight · 01-11-2003 03:29PM

look up SYSPREP - it is a Microsoft utility that disables copyright protection features of Windows 2K / XP for just long enough to clone a drive witha third party app. You have to re-enter the serial number on both drives on the next boot.

dd is great if both drives have EXACTLY the same geometry - I've had problems with it in the past but that was photocopying a 40GB drive onto a 20GB one

- have a look at the RECENT threads on cloning on this forum and the UNIX one.

Tivoli · 05-11-2003 11:12AM

because you plugged in the drive as a slave xp has marked the 120gig drive as the d drive, when you ghost it, xp might boot but it will be running off the d drive (no matter where you connect it, it is the d drive according to xp ), porblem occurs if you remove the old drive (c: ), now the swap file is gone and all the shortcuts point to a missing drive letter.

just reinstall xp on the new drive, and use that xp settings copying feature from the cd

i tried that sysprep thing once,that got xp to boot up fine but it was still on the d drive and all my shortcuts were invalid, and a lot of programs gave errors

Capt'n Midnight · 05-11-2003 01:33PM

'tis easy enough to change the drive letter back again in control panel
system management / computer management thingy..

Tivoli · 05-11-2003 04:55PM

i don't think it will let you change the drive letter on the system drive

EDIT> sorry no need for that

GUI · 06-11-2003 01:06PM

for your own information

drive image 2003 (aka 7)

lets u make an image of ur windows partition while its running

amazing stuff

Hankster · 06-11-2003 04:55PM

You could also try this, if you don't want to fork out any cash.

A little bit more difficult than using one of pieces disk cloning software, but a hell of a lot cheapr too!

Moving an XP install from one drive to another

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