Ok, I'm going to replace my HD.

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Oldmoparguy1

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Subject is a Compaq desktop with a 120gig HD running XP Pro. I just bought a 250gig Western Digital HD from Sams for $90. I want to transfer the OS and all the files. What is the simplest way to do that? Will the XP backup/restore process do this reliably with different size drives? The reason I ask is that there seems to be little information on the use of this process. If anyone can recommend a better tool, I'd appreciate it. TIA.

Wayne
 
Good luck with that and if you get an answer let us know. I've had systems here at work backed up to a network drive and have the hard drive fail. I replaced the hard drive, reinstalled Windows just enough to get it so I could do a restore and the restored Windows would crash without fail. XP is a bear when it comes to moving it from one hard drive to another. MS even addresses it in a KB article. I followed the instructions to the letter and it still failed.
 
Symantec Ghost will do this. I successfully transferred a working XP Pro system from a 30GB drive to a 120GB drive. I rebooted and you couldn't tell the difference other than it was a little faster on the new drive.
 
There's an easier, free way to do this: Ghost4Unix (don't worry, it works fine with Windows, too).

1. Download it from here. The easiest way to do this is to grab the ISO CD image, burn it to disk, then boot off the CD.

2. Install the new drive as a secondary (slave) drive with the original one as the master.

3. Boot from the Ghost4Unix CD. When you boot, you'll see a lot of scary unix stuff scroll by, then it'll show a help screen with the commands you use to duplicate a disk.

4. Run the "disks" command to list the available drives. You'll be able to tell the new one and the old one by the sizes listed. Note the disk name (something like wd0, wd1, etc).

5. Run "copydisk wd0 wd1" where wd0 is the name of the old drive and wd1 is the name of the new one.

6. When it's done, shut off the PC, move the new disk to be the master, remove the old disk and boot. You should be good to go with everything identical to the way it was, except more room.
 
Ok, downloaded G4u and burned the image. I read over the user info and it looks straightforward. I do have a question that I don't see an answer for. I understand that g4u is a serial bit copier. Do I need to format the new drive first? If I don't, will the new 250gig drive only have a 120gig image? It would seem that's how it would work.
 
Good grief. All of this over a HD swap? You really don't need to waste money on third party software for a simple HD replacement. If it's a retail drive, WD will include the necessary software in the box. If it's an OEM, go to WD's website and download the utilities. They even have ISO boot images if you can't live with the floppy/DOS prompt dance.

This is an issue that all the HD manufacturers have addressed for many years. The utilities run at machine level. It's fairly idiot-proof. Well . . . almost. There are likely some extraordinary idiots still out there.

As far as XP goes, the worst case is you'll have to reactivate it. But as this does not involve a MB change, I think you'll be fine.
 
I'd recommend using EZ GIG II software from Apricorn and make and restore a disk image. WAY more reliable than cloning with WD's software.

I've read too many horror stories online about cloning not working, but disk imaging works flawlessly. I recently used EZ GIG II to replace a busted hard drive in my laptop. Worked perfectly and all in about 20 minutes.
 
Quote:

. . . I've read too many horror stories online about cloning not working, but disk imaging works flawlessly. . .

Click to expand...


Where? I'd sure like to see those stories. Hopefully, they're not on the sites selling all these third-party utilities.
 
Got her done today. I first did the XP backup/restore process. Worked just fine, except it wouldn't boot. Spent 2 hours searching the internet for info, did all the recommended processes, that sucker just wouldn't boot. So I started from scratch with the utilities that came with the HD. After some initial confusion, understanding what the software was supposed to do, got it running. It was slow as molasses, but everything worked ok. Changed the master/slave jumpers, hit the power and it booted right up.

Flushed with success, I pulled the 80gig external drive and installed the just liberated 120gig. Cabled it up, plugged it in and formatted it without incident. Problem is, I now don't trust the XP backup process. I need to come up with a more reliable software/process that I can depend on to work. Anyway, it was kind of nice to get back to doing some hdwr. PC work.

Now I have to get all my files transferred from my old laptop to my new one.

BTW: I downloaded G4U, burned the image to cd, and it wouldn't boot either.
bop.gif
 
Check out acronis true image is a very good software.
you can backup to a usb drive booting from their disk.
or you can use the windows utilities.. its better than ghost.
I used ghost for 10 years at work.. and just changed over to
acronis.
Not that I condone it but you can find a bittorrent of it
download it .. try it out. If it works good for you. buy it
 
The new HD should come with a CD that has a utility to do a byte_for_byte copy from the old HD to the new. Follow the directions that came in the box and it will work just fine.

Wayne
 
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