On 26 Jan 2004 07:25:30 -0800, (e-mail address removed) (CJCPR) wrote:
I do NOT know whether this would work BUT if it does then it should
retain all your data IMO.
AFAIK installing an operating system on a drive should NOT mean the
deletion of all existing data on it. It doesn't on eg. '98 BUT things
might be different with Xtra Pathetic.
I suggest you ask in an XP newsgroup whether you can install XP on
a drive without losing any existing data on it already. Perhaps you
can reply back here when you get an answer ?
Assuming my assumption is correct the following should IMO retain
all your data. It will not necessarily ensure that everything executes
okay though.
In my Home computer I have two Hard disk drives. (C and D).
C: drive is 20 GB and D: drive is 60 GB.
Most of my softwares and the boot record all are in my C Drive and now
my C drive is showing as running low in Disk space.
Okay, so D: has <20 GB of data.
I have Windows XP Pro installed in my system.
Is there anything I can do (like repartitioning my hard disk) without
losing data from both the drives? Any freeware available out there?
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Consider :
(1) Mirror copy all of D: to a sub directory on D: eg. D:\oldDdata
Yes, I know you now have two of every file. That's fine, you can fit
two of everything on D: okay AND fit everything that was on C: too.
(2) Mirror copy all of C: to a sub directory on D: eg. D:\oldxp
D: now has everything that was on D: twice and everything that was on
C: once.
(3) Swap drives. Making sure you set up master/slave settings
accordingly.
(4) Use a bootup disk, or in some other way, get to the root of your
new C: (was D
drive and delete everything but the \oldxp and
\oldDdata directories.
Still with me ? Now you have everything (all data) you started with
originally on the bigger drive.
(5) Install XP to the (now C: was D
C: drive.
(6) Copy everything from (now C: was D
C:\oldDdata to the new
(smaller) D: drive.
Remembering to format the new D: drive first of course as it is
already (as you said) full of files.
Then delete all the C:\oldDdata from C: altogether.
Now your D: drive should be identical to the way (the previous D
was
when you started.
The old D: (now C
drive should now bootup okay and have all the data
you previously had on the old C:
The only problem is that everything on the original C: drive is in
C:\oldxp. You have three choices.
(A) Copy all the files/directories/sub directories in C:\oldxp to your
new "root" directory of C:. This, in theory, should give you a C:
drive like you had originally (only bigger). (Once you delete C:\oldxp
and it's contents).
(B) As per (A) but exclude copying your windows directory. In case a
registry overwrite (or any other windows file) causes problems.
The only problem is that even though you retain almost all your data
the "new" registry will not have references to it.
A way around that might be to consider exporting the original registry
and importing it back into the new install. The problem with that
however is that you might end up with duplicate entries unless you eg.
only exported the original "software" keys from your first registry.
IMO registry imports/overwriting can/do lead to too many problems
and potential problems. I suggest (B) and simply live with the fact
that you will need to re-install programs to get them back into your
"new" registry.
Regards, John.
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