Replacing system drive on XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Brimble
  • Start date Start date
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Brimble

The system drive (partitioned as C: and F:) of my XP system is starting to
fail when it gets hot.
The system just freezes and must be power-cycled - preferably being left to
cool down. I'm pretty sure it's the drive as the Event log is showing
controller errors
I have a new, larger drive that I want to use to replace it

What's the best way to do this?

I have room in the case to have the new drive alongside the old one. I also
have a copy of Acronis disk director, so that I can clone the C: partition.
Alternately, I can connect them both to a second system to copy the
partition, and set the new one as Active. - what's best?

I suppose, what I'm most concerned about, is XP not recognising the "new"
drive as C: the when I next try to boot the system and giving it a new drive
letter (so that C:/program files etc is missing)
Also, should I worry about XP licensing thinking it's now on a different
system and shutting me down?


I hope that makes sense - thanks for any help

Bob
 
Brimble said:
The system drive (partitioned as C: and F:) of my XP system is starting to
fail when it gets hot.
The system just freezes and must be power-cycled - preferably being left to
cool down. I'm pretty sure it's the drive as the Event log is showing
controller errors
I have a new, larger drive that I want to use to replace it

What's the best way to do this?

I have room in the case to have the new drive alongside the old one. I also
have a copy of Acronis disk director, so that I can clone the C: partition.
Alternately, I can connect them both to a second system to copy the
partition, and set the new one as Active. - what's best?

I suppose, what I'm most concerned about, is XP not recognising the "new"
drive as C: the when I next try to boot the system and giving it a new drive
letter (so that C:/program files etc is missing)
Also, should I worry about XP licensing thinking it's now on a different
system and shutting me down?


I hope that makes sense - thanks for any help

Bob
Click to expand...
I recommend this free utility http://clonezilla.org/

It is based on ntfsclone and other software.

I use ntfsclone booting from linux/linux live cd/live usb/netboot quite
often without any problems.

Another way to do it is to boot to any version of linux (live cd, usb
etc..) and use the dd command to clone the entire disk onto the new drive.
 
Brimble said:
The system drive (partitioned as C: and F:) of my XP system is starting to
fail when it gets hot.
The system just freezes and must be power-cycled - preferably being left to
cool down. I'm pretty sure it's the drive as the Event log is showing
controller errors
I have a new, larger drive that I want to use to replace it

What's the best way to do this?

I have room in the case to have the new drive alongside the old one. I also
have a copy of Acronis disk director, so that I can clone the C: partition.
Alternately, I can connect them both to a second system to copy the
partition, and set the new one as Active. - what's best?

I suppose, what I'm most concerned about, is XP not recognising the "new"
drive as C: the when I next try to boot the system and giving it a new drive
letter (so that C:/program files etc is missing)
Also, should I worry about XP licensing thinking it's now on a different
system and shutting me down?


I hope that makes sense - thanks for any help

Bob
Click to expand...

Hello Bob:

Shouldn't you also pursue the heat issue itself?

Regards,

Pete
 
Hello Bob:

Shouldn't you also pursue the heat issue itself?

Regards,

Pete
Click to expand...

I would also do a disk "clone" as a safety precaution. Heat can
destroy the drive and the OP will loose all infos.
 
I would also do a disk "clone" as a safety precaution. Heat can
destroy the drive and the OP will loose all infos.
Click to expand...

I'm not too worried about the heat overall - it's lasted well over 3 years
before it started to get a bit fragile.
I'm only assuming it's getting heat sensitive - maybe it's just sensitive!

I'm replacing a 250Gb SATA drive with a 750Gb one - I think I'll use some of
the spare space to hold backups (& maybe a regular clone of the system
drive)

But my original question hasn't been answered yet - Is XP happy if the boot
drive suddenly changes? Will it call the new drive c:??

Bob
 
Brimble said:
I'm not too worried about the heat overall - it's lasted well over 3 years
before it started to get a bit fragile.
I'm only assuming it's getting heat sensitive - maybe it's just sensitive!

I'm replacing a 250Gb SATA drive with a 750Gb one - I think I'll use some of
the spare space to hold backups (& maybe a regular clone of the system
drive)

But my original question hasn't been answered yet - Is XP happy if the boot
drive suddenly changes? Will it call the new drive c:??

Bob
Click to expand...
Yes, if you clone all of the partitions. If you have a partition (C:)
and another partition (E:), you will need to clone both partitions in
the same order to the same location on the new drive.

The new drive would also have to be connected to the same sata port as
the old drive - clone the old drive, remove the old drive and connect
the new drive to the sata port the old drive was connected to.
 
Brimble said:
The system drive (partitioned as C: and F:) of my XP system is starting to
fail when it gets hot.
The system just freezes and must be power-cycled - preferably being left
to
cool down. I'm pretty sure it's the drive as the Event log is showing
controller errors
I have a new, larger drive that I want to use to replace it

What's the best way to do this?

I have room in the case to have the new drive alongside the old one. I
also
have a copy of Acronis disk director, so that I can clone the C:
partition.
Alternately, I can connect them both to a second system to copy the
partition, and set the new one as Active. - what's best?

I suppose, what I'm most concerned about, is XP not recognising the "new"
drive as C: the when I next try to boot the system and giving it a new
drive
letter (so that C:/program files etc is missing)
Also, should I worry about XP licensing thinking it's now on a different
system and shutting me down?


I hope that makes sense - thanks for any help
Click to expand...

If you clone the partitions to the new drive and then place the new drive on
the same port that the old one occupied, then the drive letters will remain
unchanged.

The change of hardware counts for the XP hardware change wizard, but if you
have a network adaptor it won't bother you. If you don't have a network
adaptor, the disc change probably won't worry it unless you have changed
something else.

For the record the changes checked for are:

Network card MAC address (counts as 3)
Primary Optical drive type.
SCSI card type
Primary Hard Drive Type
Primary Volume Serial Number
Graphics card type
Memory Size (by ranges)
Processor type
Processor Serial Number
Primary IDE (or SATA) adaptor type.

7 items must remain unchanged (including missing) before a reactivation is
tripped. This number reduces to 4 for dockable laptops. A laptop is
considered dockable if it has a docking port and even a Cardbus (PCMCIA) or
an Express Card port.
 
Brimble said:
The system drive (partitioned as C: and F:) of my XP system is starting to
fail when it gets hot.
The system just freezes and must be power-cycled - preferably being left to
cool down. I'm pretty sure it's the drive as the Event log is showing
controller errors
Click to expand...

If the Event Log is showing *Controller* errors, why do you think it's
the hard drive that's failing? Have you obtained and used a diagnostic
utility from the motherboard manufacturer to verify that the controllers
are working properly? Remember, semi-conductor chips are also sensitive
to heat problems.





--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. ~Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. ~Bertrand Russell

The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has
killed a great many philosophers.
~ Denis Diderot
 
Just for info -

I found when I installed XP Pro it gave itself the drive E because I had the
BIOS set to boot from hdd 3rd (after USB and CD). It calls my optical drive
D. If I plug a USB in before boot, it calls that C.

Later I added to the same system an old drive with other folks' windows OSs
on it, and a linux I added - XP recognises the older Windows partitions on
that other hdd and names them C and F (and lets me access the files).

Later again I installed 7 to another hdd (initially I forgot it'd overwrite
the MBR in any other drives it saw with Windows, and wound up having to fix
my GRUB on the previously mentioned drive; long story but thankfully short
fix as it was something I knew how to sort out - so I resintalled 7 with the
other hdds unplugged) and despite the BIOS being the same boot order it calls
the drive C - and sees my other drives naming them (linux excluded) in order
of oldest MBR, next-oldest MBR, then non-primary boot partitions.

Don't know the partition tool you mention, be aware of what kinds of clones
it makes - some kinds have to be installed to an hdd that is the same size as
the previous hdd. It's probably fine tho' & is written to avoid that.
Another thing to watch is if it makes clones that include the empty space on
the partition too - some of them only copy the used space. You maybe want to
run - damn I always forget the name of it and can't find it right away on 7
to check what it's called, the program that rearranges the files so they are
all neat and in the right order. Anyway, that, you might want to run that
before making the clones.

It shouldn't matter if you did change the ports as to what drive letter gets
assigned, also if it did change the main booting OSs drive from C to
something else it makes no difference anyway - except that some software
installers only install to C.

If there's only one booting OS on the hdd then that's the one it'll boot,
and it should keep calling it C. Post back if it doesn't, I'd be interested
to know.
 
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