migrating to new hard drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter gene
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G

gene

I 'm running xp pro and want to change my hard drive.

where do i find out how to migrate my system and data, and not lose my
license.
 
Phil's comments are fine BUT, you must NOT have an OEM edition of XP.

Migration is possible ONLY for full retail versions of XP.
 
gene said:
I 'm running xp pro and want to change my hard drive.

where do i find out how to migrate my system and data, and not lose my
license.
Click to expand...

Changing your hard drive will not invalidate your licence for any version of
Windows XP. You are certainly allowed to change out a failed hard drive or
upgrade to a bigger one. The easiest way is with a disk imaging program as
mentioned. Some hard drives come with a file copying program but if your
computer uses a hidden restore/recovery partition they may not work. Even if
you were to format and reinstall Windows on the new drive then copy all the
data off the old drive your licence would be valid. You may have to
reactivate but that usually works fine over the internet. The worst case
scenario is you would have to phone in the reactivate. It is very unlikely
that just changing a hard drive would cause a reactivation but it is
possible.

Kerry
 
El Pescador said:
(WIN XP Pro), I performed a Norton Ghost 2003 Restore of a
"disk-to-image" from an external IDE HDD to a SATA HDD set up to
replace the original IDE Primary Master HDD (no IDE HDDs onboard).

With my Dell Dimension 8100 (WIN XP Home) on the other hand, I
performed a Norton Ghost Clone of the IDE Primary Master HDD to a SATA
HDD in an external enclosure kit which was then removed and placed in
the Primary Master HDD role (no IDE HDDs in the loop granted the
PCI-to-SATA host adapter card); the system immediately demanded that
Windows XP be reactivated within 3 days due to hardware changes - which
I put off momentarily - but eventually all the -"nickle-and-dime"- error
messages convinced me to revert to the IDE HDD as Primary Master.

*-El Pescador-*
Click to expand...

Why not just reactivate it?

Kerry
 
BAR said:
Phil's comments are fine BUT, you must NOT have an OEM edition of XP.

Migration is possible ONLY for full retail versions of XP.
Click to expand...


Why? Why would the cloned OS even know that it was a clone?
OEM editions can't be installed on other machines (supposedly),
and assuredly not on other makes of machines, but why couldn't an
OEM installation simply be moved to a new hard drive if it remained
on the same machine?


Rick Lowen
 
Philip Herlihy said:
This might help.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/oemeula.htm
Click to expand...


The issue here involves the OP's desire to "migrate" his system to a new HD
on his current computer. He didn't say what kind of machine it was -- OEM or
otherwise. One or more of the responses recommended he use a disk imaging
program, e.g., Ghost, Acronis True Image, etc. to clone the contents of his
present drive to the new one. Seems to me that's a sensible approach in this
situation.

As Rick infers, there should be no problem in the user doing this, either in
terms of violating the EULA or creating a viable clone. The user is *not*
transferring his XP OS to a *different* machine; he's simply using a new HD
in his current machine. The fact that the computer may be an OEM one is
irrelevant. In all the OEM machines we've worked on where we installed a new
HD, we had no problem in transferring the contents of the old drive
containing the XP OS to the new drive via a disk imaging program. And I
can't think of a single instance where another Activation was even necessary
when the only component being changed was the HD.
Anna
 
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