Hard Drive Installation

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gordon Biggar
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Gordon Biggar

This is probably a generic question, not unique to Windows 2000:

I am looking for the preferred way to transfer data from an existing hard
drive to a much larger, new drive.

Method 1?
Install the new drive as a slave (Drive D);
Format it;
Copy all of the folders/files over to it from the main drive (Drive C),
possibly via Windows Explorer;
Shut down;
Remove the main drive (former C), and install the new drive as Drive C.

Will the computer reboot to this new drive, and will some of the files still
carry a Drive D reference (not desirable) in the registry?

Method 2?
Format the new drive, as above; back up the folders/files from the old drive
to an external device;
Shut down, and reboot to a floppy with only the new drive installed;
Load Windows 2000 and my Backup software;
Copy the backed up files to the new drive.

Backing up to an external device, or copying files from the main drive to a
slave, seems like the same thing to me.

Thanks for any and all inputs.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
 
In
Gordon Biggar said:
This is probably a generic question, not unique to Windows 2000:

I am looking for the preferred way to transfer data from an existing
hard drive to a much larger, new drive.

Method 1?
Install the new drive as a slave (Drive D);
Format it;
Copy all of the folders/files over to it from the main drive (Drive
C), possibly via Windows Explorer;
Shut down;
Remove the main drive (former C), and install the new drive as Drive
C.

Will the computer reboot to this new drive, and will some of the
files still carry a Drive D reference (not desirable) in the registry?

Method 2?
Format the new drive, as above; back up the folders/files from the
old drive to an external device;
Shut down, and reboot to a floppy with only the new drive installed;
Load Windows 2000 and my Backup software;
Copy the backed up files to the new drive.

Backing up to an external device, or copying files from the main
drive to a slave, seems like the same thing to me.

Thanks for any and all inputs.

Gordon Biggar
Houston, Texas
Click to expand...


Ghost

http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=br&pvid=ghost10

or Acronis Migrate Easy

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/migrateeasy/
 
You mention Data, but then
1) 'will the pc reboot'
Thats not data and the method you mention wont work.

2) The win2k cd is fully bootable and able to partition/format/install
 
Will the Windows 2000 cd enable the formatting of today's large hard drives
(e.g., 200 gig)?
 
Hi Gordon,

Your steps are generic and time consuming... there's a better way out...
Use a disk imaging software like Norton Ghost. You have a feature wherein an
exact copy of one HDD can be transferred to another HDD, irrespective of disk
size or HDD controller type.

Be careful to run a sysprep before running the imaging tool. This will help
to automatically load the required Hard Disk controller driver at next boot
after fixing up the new disk onto the computer.

Google for any more information on how to go about disk imaging. Its also
called disk cloning and ghosting.
 
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