Transfering HDD is it easy ?
- Thread starter jutnm
- Start date
When moving to a larger drive the best way to proceed is first partitioning and OSing the new drive and then creating backups of the remaining data with a program like Acronis Disk Image sofftware or Norton Ghost. Activating a fresh install of Vista is now automatically seen unless unchecked when going to install the new version. Microsoft decided to make life easier there.
You can't just copy the contents of the drive and have the OS startup fine. You could image the drive with Ghost or some other imaging software and transfer everything that way.
Music and pictures can just be copied no problem but games/other programs and the OS have to be reinstalled (or copied with drive imaging software) or they more often than not don't work.
Music and pictures can just be copied no problem but games/other programs and the OS have to be reinstalled (or copied with drive imaging software) or they more often than not don't work.
i have to disagree with that.
i have done that many times in the past (with 98, 2k, and xp) with no troubles at all, since, technically speaking nothing has changed data wise. as far as the os knows, the drive just got larger like when you make a partition larger.
i'd have both drives in the pc, copy everything over, then swap the drives so the new drive was the master and thus the C drive.
you just have to make sure you copy (don't move, just copy) ALL the files, including the hidden/system files on the root of the drive, and make sure the directory structure remains the same. then swap the positions of the drives on the cable in the computer. the new drive should now be the C drive, if it doesn't work, you can swap em back and make sure everything copied. its usually best to leave the old drive with its data for a week or so to make sure everything is working fine.
Disk imaging softwares take an 80gb image and place it on a 160gb drive for one example? You could get away doing this with the older 9x-ME, 2000 family of Windows prior to XP's newer hardware profiling process where the installer takes a snapshot of all hardwares. Even with a good clone the likelihood that a repair install of Windows would still be needed just to see Windows alone running.
A new primary and clean install of Windows on the new drive is the way to go there. I happen to be in full agreement with Cromewell on this. Creating disk images or iso images for the files to be copied to the new drive or even data dvds is a different matter there. Slaving the old to the new HD is one way for direct copying without a need to buy any retail software for copying files. Verifying quality of files while still having the old HD slaved is also a wise move in case some files lose information.
A new primary and clean install of Windows on the new drive is the way to go there. I happen to be in full agreement with Cromewell on this. Creating disk images or iso images for the files to be copied to the new drive or even data dvds is a different matter there. Slaving the old to the new HD is one way for direct copying without a need to buy any retail software for copying files. Verifying quality of files while still having the old HD slaved is also a wise move in case some files lose information.
The only time cloning drives works is in the corporate environment where you log onto a network with an OS like Windows Server 2003 and not the average desktop OS. XP Pro was the exception due to the 16bit support for logging onto older networks there. For the home user the repair install option remains the only option after the recovery console for writing new boot information and correcting the mbr.
Changing hard drives is taking into consideration a major hardware change just as well as swapping boards out for these reasons. The only time cloning works is when identical drives are used such as mentioned above in the server/corporate type emvironment. A repair install sees better results often with a board swap over a drive change while still not advised there either.
One reason I like having a multiboot system is having one drive set aside for storage or at least a separate partition for that. With a new build in progress here OSs will be shifting between drives to see XP Pro remain on the current build with XP Home and Vista planned for the new one. 3 out of 4 drives will have to be wiped.
Changing hard drives is taking into consideration a major hardware change just as well as swapping boards out for these reasons. The only time cloning works is when identical drives are used such as mentioned above in the server/corporate type emvironment. A repair install sees better results often with a board swap over a drive change while still not advised there either.
One reason I like having a multiboot system is having one drive set aside for storage or at least a separate partition for that. With a new build in progress here OSs will be shifting between drives to see XP Pro remain on the current build with XP Home and Vista planned for the new one. 3 out of 4 drives will have to be wiped.
then why did it work for me the many times i DID it?
like i said 'i have done it many times with no troubles at all'
well...maybe it was just luck as to why it worked. maybe it was based on how the new hard drives were already formatted or something.
in 2001 i had replaced a 7gb drive with a 30gb one with win98, copying the contents over. few months later i put that 7gb drive with win2k in a different pc and in 2002 upgraded that with an 80gb drive copying the os over. then around 2005, i downgraded a 40gb drive to that 7gb drive since i wanted the 40gb in a different pc, copied winxp over without trouble then aswel.
in 2001 i had replaced a 7gb drive with a 30gb one with win98, copying the contents over. few months later i put that 7gb drive with win2k in a different pc and in 2002 upgraded that with an 80gb drive copying the os over. then around 2005, i downgraded a 40gb drive to that 7gb drive since i wanted the 40gb in a different pc, copied winxp over without trouble then aswel.
The first thing to do with the new 500gb drive is partition and format it for NTFS. Before Windows even goes on you can simply slave the new drive for copy+paste operations that way. You can even create new folders to store the various files like game saves, etc. for ready access. Then it's the simple process of installing a new copy of Windows if not already done plus your games and other programs. It will always work out better with a new copy seeing a fresh registry to work with.