Hard Drive swap

  • Thread starter Thread starter sweeneytodd
  • Start date Start date
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sweeneytodd

Hi, could anyone please help me, My dad has a computer which he has
finally put in a new bigger hard drive (120gb) as a slave, which the
computer has give it the letter "H", The "C" drive does not have that
much space on it so my dad would like to (if possible) make the "H"
drive as the "C" drive (swap the drive letters over), If anyone knows
how to change these two drives over please let me know, The system is
running Windows XP Pro, Please help me.
Many Thanks in advance
 
sweeneytodd said:
Hi, could anyone please help me, My dad has a computer which he has
finally put in a new bigger hard drive (120gb) as a slave, which the
computer has give it the letter "H", The "C" drive does not have that
much space on it so my dad would like to (if possible) make the "H"
drive as the "C" drive (swap the drive letters over), If anyone knows
how to change these two drives over please let me know, The system is
running Windows XP Pro, Please help me.
Many Thanks in advance
Click to expand...


sweeneytodd:
There's no simple way to swap the drive letter assignments as the situation
now stands with the objective of assigning drive letter C: to the new 120 GB
HDD and assigning a different drive letter to the older HDD.

Probably the most practical way to do this is to use a disk imaging program
such as Acronis True Image or Symantec's Norton Ghost to clone the contents
of the old HDD over to the new one; then disconnect the old HDD and boot to
the new HDD. That would make the new HDD the C: drive. In that situation
your Dad's new HDD would be a copy of the old one and be bootable. And all
his programs would be transferred over to the new HDD. He could then format
the old HDD and use it for backup/storage purposes.

This disk copying process could also be accomplished by using the HDD
manufacturer's disk copying program which is included in a retail boxed
version of the new HDD. If your Dad purchased an OEM version of the HDD -
that program would not be included - however it could be downloaded in
nearly all cases from the manufacturer's website.
Anna
 
Hi, could anyone please help me, My dad has a computer which he has
finally put in a new bigger hard drive (120gb) as a slave, which the
computer has give it the letter "H", The "C" drive does not have that
much space on it so my dad would like to (if possible) make the "H"
drive as the "C" drive (swap the drive letters over), If anyone knows
how to change these two drives over please let me know, The system is
running Windows XP Pro, Please help me.
Many Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

You need to copy the data over. There are numerous partition
copier/resizer programs (you need to copy the whole partition, not
just the files on it), I'm not aware of any that are free but there
might be some.

Once it's copied, reset the new drive to master and the old one to
slave.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
You need to copy the data over. There are numerous partition
copier/resizer programs (you need to copy the whole partition, not
just the files on it), I'm not aware of any that are free but there
might be some.

Once it's copied, reset the new drive to master and the old one to
slave.
Click to expand...
If the 2 hd's jumpers were reversed, & the new hd installed as a single
master on this computer, could he not then install the old hd as the slave &
be home free? s
 
If the 2 hd's jumpers were reversed, & the new hd installed as a single
master on this computer, could he not then install the old hd as the slave &
be home free? s
Click to expand...
The OP asked for a way to "swap the drive letters" and he did not
mention anything about the operating system or the like. The problem
is *not* swapping of drive letters, it is about making the PC workable
afterwards, i.e. if the new 120Gb drive does not contain the operating
system files a letter swap does him no good, it will just give him a
non-bootable PC.

What he needs to do is to clone the original hard disk to the new
120Gb drive and then retire the old drive and boot off the new one,
which will now be possible (after drive jumper modifications).
Acronis True Image 15 day trial will do the trick for him.


Bo Berglund
bo.berglund(at)nospam.telia.com
 
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