Good program for copying OS on hard drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tod
  • Start date Start date
T

Tod

I'm going to be replacing my WD 80GB boot hard drive
with something larger (160, 200 or 250)
and I can't find my Windows XP CD.
So I will need to copy everything from one HD to the other.
What a good program for doing this?
 
Tod said:
I'm going to be replacing my WD 80GB boot hard drive
with something larger (160, 200 or 250)
and I can't find my Windows XP CD.
So I will need to copy everything from one HD to the other.
What a good program for doing this?
Click to expand...

Symantec Ghost and also usually with new retail HDs such a copy program is
included.
 
Tod said:
I'm going to be replacing my WD 80GB boot hard drive
with something larger (160, 200 or 250)
and I can't find my Windows XP CD.
So I will need to copy everything from one HD to the other.
What a good program for doing this?
Click to expand...

I prefer Acronis True Image for that currently. Not free tho.

Ghost 2003 as part of SystemWorks Pro 2003 off ebay
is quite a bit cheaper, but not as convenient to use.
 
Irwin said:
The drive should come with a program
to do that, shouldn't need to buy anything.
Click to expand...

They dont always work very well and can
load bios overlays when they arent needed.
 
Tod said:
I do have a copy of SystemWorks 2003
Click to expand...

You need the Pro to get Ghost.
Also can do a 15 day trial of SystemWorks 2005
Click to expand...

Not sure what is in that Ghost wise.

True Image has a 15 day trial, and is supposed to be fully working.
The trial I tried wasnt fully working, thats supposed to have changed.
 
I've got the Norton SystemWorks 2005 CD, but no serial number.
So it will give me 15 days and it has Ghost.
 
I have SystemWorks 2005 (not Pro, free with rebate, of course), it does
not have Ghost, has GoBack instead.
 
Tod said:
I've got the Norton SystemWorks 2005 CD, but no serial number. So it will give
me 15 days and it has Ghost.
Click to expand...

You should be using Ghost 2003 if that is on the CD.
Ghost 9 cant do the clone from the CD and needs to
be installed before it can clone a drive, and the clone
operation is done at the Win level which produces problems
with drive letters and is very slow and failed for me too.

Just boot the Ghost 2003 floppy and do the clone from there.

The only real trick with Ghost 2003 is that it is crucial to
not let the new hard drive do the initial boot with the old
hard drive visible to the system. Physically disconnect
the old hard drive before the first boot of the new one.
XP will say its seen new hardware and ask for another
reboot. Accept that, and let it boot up fully into XP.

Once that has happened, you can connect the old drive
again and say reformat it and use it for data or whatever.
I personally delay that by a week or so just in case the
new drive dies in days, but thats your choice basically.

True Image is rather more elegant, basically
because you can make a bootable CD instead
and its more powerful if you want to adjust the
sizes of the partitions as you clone the original drive.
 
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