Copying whoe OS?????

[aznboi64]

How can I copy all my files including OS from my old HD to the new one?

[Cooler666]

you can use Norton Ghost or Drive Image
just make an image of your existing hard drive, burn it to cd and then restore it onto the new hard drive.

[aznboi64]

But I have a 30gig HD I'm using 28gigs already. Will it compress all 28gigs? If so how many disc do I need then? What does norton ghost do? I don't mind installing my other HD and using a program to copy everything from the old to the new.

[Xaotic]

It will compress all of the information. Compression ratios will vary highly depending on the types of data on the disk. Archives and files that are already compressed will usually not compress much further while unpacked files and programs will compress pretty well. With that much data, it'll take a long time to burn in any event. If you are not using XP or NTFS file systems, you should be able to use a utility from the manufacturer to copy the data and set up the disk. Using XP, you'd need the latest version of Drive Image or Ghost and will have options to copy the disk, if I remember correctly.

[Cooler666]

you can also burn it to several disks not just one

[Goldwing]

Often new HDDs come with a utility to clone the old drive directly to the new one. (for Maxtor it is MaxBlast and is available on their website)

Just install the new HDD as primary master and the old on one of the other channels. Boot using the disk with the utility on it and follow the instructions. It clones everything and your machine doesn't know the HDD's have been switched.

[JimmyG]

If you choose to use Norton Ghost and save the image to CDs then a good guess at the number of disks would be:

28GB/(.7GB) = 40 Disks. If you have a lot of text files, then the number would be less. If you have a lot of programs and sound files or video files it might be more.

Goldwing's idea of cloning the disk to a new hard drive can also be done with Norton Ghost. It is pretty painless that way.

[Batman@]

you can also use the xcopy command in dos

[Maddman]

Originally posted by therock911@
you can also use the xcopy command in dos

I wouldn't do that. The xcopy command has problems with long file names and is not an exact image.

[JimmyG]

I agree with Maddman. XCOPY also does not copy hidden and system files. The placement of files on the harddrive in specific locations is part of WINDOZE. To do what you have in mind requires an image.

[Batman@]

I did the Xcopy feature to copy my contents of a 20 gig 5400 to my 15 gig 7200 hold one lemme get the site, it was xcopy2 i beleive just gimme a few days to find that site, it says this features only came with windows Me or later i beleive I may be wrong, just gimme like 2 days to find the site, i'll get back to you.