How to swap harddrive without reinstall

Dragonprince

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Joined

Dec 4, 2002

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CT

• Apr 15, 2003

• #1

I just picked up a new WD 40gig drive with the 8meg cache and want to swap out my current C drive. My question is does anyone know of software that will transfer the data, including Win XP Home, from my current C drive to the new drive and make it bootable. I really really dont want to reinstall all of my app's and my OS.
My C drive is formated for NTFS and I want to format the new one NTFS also. My Windows version is WinXP Home w/SP1.
Thanks.

 

Th0r

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Dec 23, 2002

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England. Liverpool, Aintree

• Apr 15, 2003

• #2

If u received a disk with ur HDD, put it in, switch on computer and after it has loaded up the disk just select drive copy or something like that.

 

OP

Dragonprince

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Joined

Dec 4, 2002

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CT

• Apr 15, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #3

I tried the free utility from WD but for some reason it didnt make the drive bootable. I dont mind paying for something if it works....

 

skab

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Mar 9, 2003

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Montevideo, Minnesota

• Apr 15, 2003

• #4

If you WinXP you should be able to use settings and files transfer under system tools, shouldn't you? Haven't tried it yet myself but will be doing it this weekend.

 

Zazuk

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Oct 15, 2001

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Portland, OR. USA

• Apr 16, 2003

• #5

At my work we use Norton's Ghost.

 

F4

Red Raccoon Dojo

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Mar 29, 2003

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Beamsville

• Apr 16, 2003

• #6

Yes, I'd highly recommend picking up a copy of Norton Ghost (included with Systemworks), it's very easy to use, and built with what you want to do in mind.

 

batboy

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Jan 12, 2001

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Kansas, USA

• Apr 16, 2003

• #7

Norton Ghost rocks. That's what I always use.

 

OP

Dragonprince

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Dec 4, 2002

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CT

• Apr 17, 2003

• Thread Starter
• #8

I looked at the Norton Ghost web page and browsed through the FAQ's and knowledge base they have posted but no where do I see any thing that describes how to replace a hard drive using the software. Are you sure it will do this?
Again I dont want to create a restore disk, I just want to copy my current C drive data to my new disk, remove my old disk, reboot to the new disk and not have to reinstall everything.
This was very easy to do under Win98 using DOS, but my drives are NTFS and Win98 wont read/write to NTFS. Thanks.

 

nikhsub1

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Oct 12, 2001

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Los Angeles

• Apr 17, 2003

• #9

Dragonprince said:

I looked at the Norton Ghost web page and browsed through the FAQ's and knowledge base they have posted but no where do I see any thing that describes how to replace a hard drive using the software. Are you sure it will do this?
Again I dont want to create a restore disk, I just want to copy my current C drive data to my new disk, remove my old disk, reboot to the new disk and not have to reinstall everything.
This was very easy to do under Win98 using DOS, but my drives are NTFS and Win98 wont read/write to NTFS. Thanks.

Click to expand...

Yes it will do it! I swear by it. I think you first need to format the new drive to NTFS, then you boot up from the Ghost floppy and select 'Disk Copy'. You select your old drive as the 'source' drive and the new drive as the 'destination'. It will copy the data bit by bit, it will be EXACTLY as the old drive. One thing to note - once the process completes, make SURE you take the old drive out of the system. When you boot with the 2 drives that are identical like that, windows can do some funny things.

 

Th0r

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Dec 23, 2002

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England. Liverpool, Aintree

• Apr 17, 2003

• #10

Norton has a clone option.

 

SpliT71

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Nov 17, 2002

• Apr 19, 2003

• #11

where did you get a 40 gb 8mb cache i want one!!!

 

I

IGUANAS

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Apr 6, 2003

• Apr 19, 2003

• #12

acronis perfect image is the best software i used for this purpose...
it leaves ghost in the dust

 

gothstone

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Apr 5, 2002

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Blue Springs, MO

• Apr 19, 2003

• #13

Ghost is great, but next time get a maxtor drive. Their software has no probelm duplicateing drives. Ghost will do what you want though, thats what its made for. It wouldn't supprise me if the backbone of Maxtors software is actualy ghost.

 

JDXNC

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Jan 16, 2002

• Apr 19, 2003

• #14

IGUANAS said:

acronis perfect image is the best software i used for this purpose...
it leaves ghost in the dust

Click to expand...

I believe its called Migrate Easy, but either way... this peice of software by Acronis is a very fine piece of software and I swear by it, definately worth its price.

Ghoast of Migrate Easy will work just fine, just take whatever you can get your hands on. If you want free... Maxtor's Maxblast(which is free) works fine too but doesn't have as many options.

 

gothstone

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Blue Springs, MO

• Apr 19, 2003

• #15

Unless there is a crack I don't know about, Maxblast won't let you use a destination drive thats not a Maxtor. They wouldn't want to help WD users!

 

JDXNC

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Jan 16, 2002

• Apr 19, 2003

• #16

gothstone said:

Unless there is a crack I don't know about, Maxblast won't let you use a destination drive thats not a Maxtor. They wouldn't want to help WD users!

Click to expand...

Coulda swore I used to so copy a WD to a seagate.... it was a while ago, maybe I'm worng... eithway, I use Acronis now.

 

Milkman

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Jan 26, 2002

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NH Biodiesel master

• Apr 19, 2003

• #17

I swapped drives in the wifes last night, I used Xp's Backup utility to B/u her drive on my comp through the network, then slaved her new drive on mine and copied her b/u to it, it worked like a charm. Then I installed Ghost on hers and backed up to Cdr's.

-mamer