You need a drive copy program. This is a good option
http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/ but there are several others
including Symantec Ghost or possibly your hard drive manufacture has a copy
program you can download.
1) Create the boot floppy or CD that comes with the Drive Copy program.
2) Connect your new drive as the Primary Master - check the drive's
documentation to see how to do that
3) Connect the old drive as the Primary Slave - switch the jumper to the
slave position - see documentation for your drive
4) Boot with the Drive Copy programs and do a Disk->Disk copy being
absolutely certain you are copying the old drive to the new drive. If you
copy the new drive to the old you will over write and lose your data so be
careful!!!
5) When finished shutdown the computer and disconnect the old drive. Then
restart and run Windows. ensure it is performing properly. it is important
not to leave both drives connected when you reboot for the first time. Not
doing so may result in your new drive being assigned a drive letter other
than C.
Once you've run Windows on the new drive at least once you can shut down and
reconnect the old drive again if you want to use it for storage. It will
show up in My Computer where you can right click and select Format. That
will wipe the drive and let your use it to store files.
--
Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp
| I want to update xp home to a larger hard drive,and
| transfer my os and files to the new drive,what is the
| best practice without having to reinstall.