Replacing Hard drive.

  • Thread starter Thread starter msimon800
  • Start date Start date
M

msimon800

Where can I get a procedure for replacing my hard drive
as far as activation goes? I would like to transfer the
contents of my old hard drive to the new hard drive, by
connecting it as a slave hard drive on my computer. Can I
just load XP on my new hard drive and will it activate?
Thanks
 
Some little thing always goes wrong or isn't completed. Here is what
often works.

1) Download the drive copy utility from your new hard disk vendor web
site. Make sure that it supports Windows XP, so that it can copy NTFS
formatted partitions. Make the drive copy floppy, boot the floppy, and
copy the drive.

2) Boot the old drive, run compmgmt.msc and examine the new drive. It
should be "healthy" and marked as a "system" drive. Right-click on the
new disk partition and select "mark partition as active". If that option
is not grayed out, then the partition was not marked active and would
not have booted. This is the most common gotcha.

3) Boot into your BIOS and set the boot device to be the new drive. If
it boots, you are done. If the BIOS complains it doesn't find an OS,
then continue.

4) Boot to the XP CD and run the first repair option. Run the commands
"fixboot" and "fixmbr". These commands setup the boot sector so that
your BIOS can boot the disk.

5) Boot the new disk. If it doesn't work, post back with a detailed
error message.

Windows XP likely will not need to activate, since you only changed one
piece of hardware. If it does want to activate, just let it. Only takes
a minute or two.
 
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