Help Me Move My Data

[rdytorave]

Hello,
Due to a great deal on WD Caviar HD's at CompUSA, I will be upgrading my pc. I currently have a Maxtor 40GB hardrive that holds all my data. I'm using Windows 2000 with NTFS. I want to make the WD harddrive my primary IDE drive and the Maxtor as a slave. How do I go about transferring all my files to the WD drive? Will my OS boot if I set the Maxtor is the slave drive and the blank WD as the master?

This is probably a newb question but I've never even backed up a hard drive before. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

rdy

 

[moorcito]

I think partition magic has a drive image program, which would allow you to do a drive to drive copy. That's the way that I'd back up the hard drive, it's just quicker than anyother method. And if partition magic doesn't work, just google for drive imaging programs, I'm sure something will turn up.

As far as the OS booting the Maxtor as slave, I'm think it will as long as you can specify what drive to boot in the bios. Don't quote me on that though because I don't use windows that much.

 

[ronin1967]

Before we go any further do you want to keep both HDD's in the machine?

 

[rdytorave]

yes

 

[ronin1967]

Drive imaging software would be the best bet and the easist way for you. Drive Image, Norton Ghost or DriveCopy(from the same maker as Partition Magic) all works great. I must mention that it has been my experience that mirroring harddrives works and usually flawlessly, but if I had the time and the software I would do a fresh install. I assume you are buying one of the 80 or 120 GIG drives. Why not partition it, then install the OS and go from there. 2k and NTFS can easily handle 80 or 120Gig's. Then format the old drive and setup it as a spare. Since you have the extra drive why not setup a dual boot with one of the older OS's like 98SE, or even give Linux a try...

Check the CD-ROM that came with your motherboard, sometimes they bundle software with it(my EPoX came with Norton Ghost), I am pretty sure you won't get any with the new WD.