removing hard drives under XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter cw
  • Start date Start date
C

cw

I wonder if anyone can help please.

I have an XP based system which currently has two physical drives.

The first drive (C) is an old ATA66 drive with the operating system on it.
The second drive is an ATA133 drive, partitioned into D and E.

I wanted to get rid of the old slow drive, so I used Drive Copy to copy it
onto drive D, making drive D bootable.

I then removed the old drive, reconfigured the new one to be master and
re-booted.

The computer started to boot but halted after a while and refused to go any
further. It wouldn't boot in safe mode either.

I suspect that it may be to do with the fact that the OS is expecting to
find C, D, and E when it starts.

How can I remove the old drive in a way that XP finds acceptable?

TIA

cw
 
I wonder if anyone can help please.
Click to expand...
I have an XP based system which currently has two physical drives.
Click to expand...
The first drive (C) is an old ATA66 drive with the operating system on it.
The second drive is an ATA133 drive, partitioned into D and E.
Click to expand...
I wanted to get rid of the old slow drive, so I used Drive
Copy to copy it onto drive D, making drive D bootable.
Click to expand...
I then removed the old drive, reconfigured
the new one to be master and re-booted.
Click to expand...
The computer started to boot but halted after a while and
refused to go any further. It wouldn't boot in safe mode either.
Click to expand...
I suspect that it may be to do with the fact that the
OS is expecting to find C, D, and E when it starts.
Click to expand...

Its more complicated than that. If the only thing on the original D and
E was just data, it should have worked fine if you cloned properly.
How can I remove the old drive in a way that XP finds acceptable?
Click to expand...

Its crucial when cloning an XP boot drive that XP cant see both
the original, in this case the ATA66 drive, and the clone of XP on
the ATA133 drive on the first boot after the clone has been done.

You need to do the clone and then turn the system off and physically
unplug the ATA66 drive and boot off the ATA133 drive. XP will claim
to have found new hardware and request a reboot. You should allow
that reboot and it should boot fine. THEN you can connect the ATA66
drive again if you want to format it and use it for data storage etc.

And its safest to do the clone using the dos floppys or after having
booted the Drive Copy CD so you get to turn the system off and
unplug the ATA66 before you boot XP after the clone has been done.
 
Rod Speed said:
Its more complicated than that. If the only thing on the original D and
E was just data, it should have worked fine if you cloned properly.


Its crucial when cloning an XP boot drive that XP cant see both
the original, in this case the ATA66 drive, and the clone of XP on
the ATA133 drive on the first boot after the clone has been done.

You need to do the clone and then turn the system off and physically
unplug the ATA66 drive and boot off the ATA133 drive. XP will claim
to have found new hardware and request a reboot. You should allow
that reboot and it should boot fine. THEN you can connect the ATA66
drive again if you want to format it and use it for data storage etc.
Click to expand...

I did disconnect the old drive, and I did the copy using Drive Copy DOS
diskettes, so XP would only have seen the new boot partition.

CW
 
I did disconnect the old drive, and I did the copy using Drive Copy
DOS diskettes, so XP would only have seen the new boot partition.
Click to expand...

So what version of Drive Copy and how is
the old drive formatted, FAT32 or NTFS ?

Ghost 2003 will certainly work and is dirt cheap
as part of SystemWorks Pro 2003 from ebay etc.
 
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