Is it possible to "clone" a WinXP installation onto a larger HDD?

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Doc

My friend has a small "C" drive of about 30gb. This is pretty much full and
she is unable to even run a defrag. Due to a brain malfunction (a blond
moment) a year or so ago, she threw out most of the discs for programs that
she has installed on the computer... not the Windows disc, thank God:)

Recently she has been installing programs onto a similar sized "D" drive and
has been transferring everything she can to that drive. Result, 2 small
HDD's with only about 2GB free between them.

She needs a larger HDD, preferably the "C" drive so that she can defrag etc.
Problem is that almost everything on the current C: is irreplaceable. I
thought that a workaround might be to buy a new large HDD and fit it in the
computer as the D: drive. Install Windows from her original XP disc and then
copy the entire C: drive onto the new large drive. Then remove the old small
C: drive and re-fit the large drive as the C: drive.

Is this going to work?

TIA
 
Not likely. The programs have likely created entries in the registry (CLIDS
etc) that are required to run properly (or at all). There are other
complications, but suffice it to say you can't "Just Copy Stuff" and expect
everything to work a-ok. You "will have a nightmare".

I've used the tools on this site with great success: http://www.acronis.com/

Hope it helps.
 
Doc said:
My friend has a small "C" drive of about 30gb. This is pretty much full and
she is unable to even run a defrag. Due to a brain malfunction (a blond
moment) a year or so ago, she threw out most of the discs for programs that
she has installed on the computer... not the Windows disc, thank God:)

Recently she has been installing programs onto a similar sized "D" drive and
has been transferring everything she can to that drive. Result, 2 small
HDD's with only about 2GB free between them.

She needs a larger HDD, preferably the "C" drive so that she can defrag etc.
Problem is that almost everything on the current C: is irreplaceable. I
thought that a workaround might be to buy a new large HDD and fit it in the
computer as the D: drive. Install Windows from her original XP disc and then
copy the entire C: drive onto the new large drive. Then remove the old small
C: drive and re-fit the large drive as the C: drive.

Is this going to work?
Click to expand...


That won;t work

I suggest you use Acronis True image
 
My friend has a small "C" drive of about 30gb. This is pretty much full and
she is unable to even run a defrag. Due to a brain malfunction (a blond
moment) a year or so ago, she threw out most of the discs for programs that
she has installed on the computer... not the Windows disc, thank God:)

Recently she has been installing programs onto a similar sized "D" drive and
has been transferring everything she can to that drive. Result, 2 small
HDD's with only about 2GB free between them.

She needs a larger HDD, preferably the "C" drive so that she can defrag etc.
Problem is that almost everything on the current C: is irreplaceable. I
thought that a workaround might be to buy a new large HDD and fit it in the
computer as the D: drive. Install Windows from her original XP disc and then
copy the entire C: drive onto the new large drive. Then remove the old small
C: drive and re-fit the large drive as the C: drive.

Is this going to work?
Click to expand...


No.

If she uninstalls Windows, the programs installed under it will lose
their registry entries (and supporting files within Windows) and will
no longer work.

What she should do is clone her C: drive to the larger one using a
program like Acronis True Image (my personal favorite, but there are
other choices). Then she can remove the old C: drive and make the new
cloned one C:
 
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