What's the best way to mirror my hard drive?

[Illah]

I got a new drive and I don't feel like re-installing everything. I've tried x-copy but I get access violations on stuff like io.sys and pagefile.sys. Whatever, I'll make a boot disk. Well, with a 60 and 120 gig drive on NTFS the boot disk won't read anything, and the xcopy won't run anyways.

Anyone know an easy, simple way to do it? Right now I have the new drive hooked up as slave, I just wanna make sure EVERYTHING copies (I don't trust a win explorer drag and drop, unless you're sure it works).

--Illah

 

[EluSiOn]

Norton Ghost 2003

 

[A380]

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[Illah]

OK I got problems here. Ghost copies fine, but it won't boot from the new drive. I went so far as to completely format and clean install win XP on the new drive, the ghost the old one over, and the same problem arises.

My best guess is the new drive is ID'ed as drive F and G (2 partitions) somewhere in win XP. I need them ID'ed as C and D. Of course I can't change the system drive letter... Or can I? I have a very very very good feeling that if I can I'll be set.

Yes I've completely unhooked the old drive and I know how the slave/master deal works.

Any tips would be great.

--Illah

 

[stool]

Some of the software that comes with new drives allows you to make mirrors of existing drives as a setup step. I know that at least Maxtor's allows this.

 

[Xaotic]

Try FDISK /MBR. Normally if there is a problem in booting the drive, it'll show a blank screen with a cursor flashing in the top left corner.

 

[Illah]

I can't find fdisk on winXP. I've been looking for it!

Any chace you could link me towards that Maxtor proggie? I'm going from IBM to WD but a program is a program, I think it's at least worth a shot.

--Illah

 

[Xaotic]

FDISK is on a DOS boot disk.

Maxtor's is here, but I've heard it doesn't handle NTFS.

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast_plus_ii.htm

WD software is here, but the same limitations if I remember.

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

 

[Illah]

Oooooohhhh thanks for that link! The WD site says it fixed the NTFS deal and some other things, i.e. it should work!

I'll try it when I get home.

I must say that I never thought this would be so hard. Back in the day 'format f: /s' and 'xcopy c:\ f:\' would have done it.

--Illah

 

[ntpphong]

Powerquest Drive Immage is the best and most powerfull tool i've ever used

 

[Illah]

Thanks, I'll give that a shot if the WD utility falls through. Ghost ain't doin it for me. I don't blame the proggie though, it's probably XP that's doing it. Diggin through the M$ homepage I found something about XP using the drive ID's to assign static lettering to the drives, so when I image over I guess it still see's my new WD drive as F:\. Then it looks for c:\windows\etc...... and it can't find it.

Just a guess though. I'll try these utils and hopefully they prove me wrong.

--Illah

 

[dxiw]

Norton Ghost 2003

i agree. just make a ghost boot disk, reboot, and voila!

EDIT: did you clone all the partitions onto the new drive with ghost?

 

[Illah]

Powerquest Drive Immage is the best and most powerfull tool i've ever used

I should give you a dollar. It took like ten times as long as ghost did, but then again Ghost didn't work! Thanks man.

--Illah