Replacing a primary drive-how to copy?

  • Thread starter Thread starter TomM in NY
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T

TomM in NY

I am replacing my primary drive with a Seagate 80 gig drive on my Presario
Desktop. What is the easiest way to get the current drive copied to the new
drive so I don't have to reinstall everything one at a time?
Thanks!
tom
 
Use Ghost. It's quick and easy, and will automatically resize for a larger
drive. I believe you can download it from Symantec.

Dave
 
I chose Drive Image over Ghost because most reviews say Drive Image was more
user friendly. Its worked for me with no problem.
 
What OS are you running? You may be able to use freeware XXCOPY
(http://www.xxcopy.com/). I don't know if it works with XP or Win2k
though.

Symantec has two different products that can do this (Drive Copy and
Norton Ghost).
 
I'd do it by making the new drive a slave, plug the new drive into the
machine. (If the IDE cable on the main drive doesn't have a spare
connector, you may need a new one, $5-$10.) Fdisk and format. Use
ghost or similar to clone the old drive over to the new one. Switch
drives, making the new drive master and the old drive slave. Keep the
old drive in there for backing up data.

Want to eliminate a step? Make the new drive the master, reinstall the
old drive as the slave. THEN fdisk, partition and ghost. I'd take the
extra step, personally, making the fewest changes possible before
making sure I had actually copied the old drive. But I'm lame at this
stuff...
 
Agreed. Ghost takes care of the partitioning and formatting for you.

Besides, if you're using XP, there is no fdisk. Oh, how times do change.
 
John Vannoy said:
What OS are you running? You may be able to use freeware XXCOPY
(http://www.xxcopy.com/). I don't know if it works with XP or Win2k
though.

Symantec has two different products that can do this (Drive Copy and
Norton Ghost).

(e-mail address removed) (TomM in NY) wrote in message
Click to expand...


I believe that Drive Copy requires that both drives be in the same machine.

I've used Drive Image to make an image of the old primary drive and used the
image to copy it to the newly installed drive and to update an existing
drive on a second computer as well. Worked fine. The boot and program
floppies are used to get the image onto a new drive.
 
TomM in NY said:
I am replacing my primary drive with a Seagate 80 gig drive
on my Presario Desktop. What is the easiest way to get the
current drive copied to the new drive so I don't have to reinstall
everything one at a time?
Click to expand...


As Rod Speed would insist, after you copy the image of
the old HD to the new HD, electrically DISCONNECT the
OLD HD, and THEN boot up the new drive for the 1st time.
(You may designate which drive to boot by adjusting the
"boot sequence" (i.e. boot device priority) in the BIOS.)
Thereafter, the new drive may be booted with the old drive
connected to the system, and you can do what you will
with it. When the new OS sees the old OS upon 1st
boot-up, the two OSes coalesce somehow (perhaps
only with Windows XP), and things don't do right.

Another caution, which may be overkill, is to uninstall
Norton Anti-Virus (if you have it) before doing the copy,
and then re-install it in the new HD after the copy.

*TimDaniels*
 
On 11 Dec 2003 10:35:00 -0800
What OS are you running? You may be able to use freeware XXCOPY
(http://www.xxcopy.com/). I don't know if it works with XP or Win2k
though.

Symantec has two different products that can do this (Drive Copy and
Norton Ghost).
Click to expand...

Symantec has _one_ product, "Ghost". It's PowerQuest that has two,
"Drive Copy" and "Drive Image".
 
J.Clarke said:
On 11 Dec 2003 10:35:00 -0800


Symantec has _one_ product, "Ghost". It's PowerQuest that has two,
"Drive Copy" and "Drive Image".
Click to expand...

PowerQuest is now part of Symantec.
 
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