Help with Hard disc update and XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andy P
  • Start date Start date
A

Andy P

I am about to upgrade PC by adding a new 80G.HDD. I
intend to keep my old drive in as supplemental storage
for the time being. WHat is the process of transferring
XP as an operating system from one to another? Is it -
make the new one a slave, boot up as normal, copy
everything across and then re boot having swapped master
slave settings or does XP have a fancy routine for doing
it ?
any help appreciated

andy
 
Hi, Andy.

You've got the right idea, but there a couple of gotchas to avoid.

Most copy programs (like Xcopy.exe /c /h /e /r /k) will copy all your files,
but they won't copy the boot sector, which is not a file - and it is
essential for booting. To get that boot sector onto your new HD, you'll
need to boot from your WinXP CD-ROM - after you've made the new HD your
master and BEFORE you plug in the old drive as slave! - and run the Repair
process to fix the startup files.

If you plug in the old HD as slave before the Repair procedure, WinXP will
find the existing Active (bootable) partition on the old HD, which will
confuse things badly, probably causing the first primary partition on your
new HD to be something other than Drive C: - and that's not easy to fix.

Most new HDs come with software to transfer everything - including the boot
sector - which should make the whole process easier. After all, they want
to sell those new drives, so they try to make it as easy as possible for us
to make the transfer.

Once WinXP is up and running on your new drive, then you can plug in the old
HD as slave and use Disk Management to repartition, reformat and reassign
drive letters to suit yourself. ;<)

RC
 
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