TBF Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I have a sticky situation . I need to transfer the contents of my old drive to a new ( larger ) drive. I do not have the disk to reload XP Pro , so it's got to be transferred intact. Any help appreciated, I am a computer idiot. Travis F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loves2Shoot Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Pay someone to do it, it should be pretty dang cheap, and it isn't worth the hassle if you don't know what you are doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Norton Ghost is wonderful - install it; make a boot floppy; and use it to copy from one drive to another. It will even do a logical copy from a small drive to a large one. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
galt11 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 The easiest way is to use a program called Norton Ghost. It copies your drive totally from one drive to another. It also speeds the process up greatly over something like cut and paste. Let me knwo if you need more info. Adam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 +3 for Norton Ghost, but you will have to buy it for $70. The comparable software for Mac is free ;-) BTW, you may have to reactivate some software licensing after the copy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZ38super Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I've never had to reactivate anything after a ghost over... WesternDigital provides a nice utility that works like ghost for free with the last couple drives I bought, worked great and I even have two versions of Ghost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 The newer Adobe products (latest CS versions), Autocad and the latest Macromedia products probably will need the SN's re-entered, or web access authentication on first run after cloning. MS Office and the usual stuff, probably not. Depends on how new apps are. The latest versions of some apps are real sensitive about being cloned (they are getting wise out there). -- Regards, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vluc Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Have done it over a half a dozen times....Ghost. Now, what OS are you using? IIRC XP has some issues if you make too many changes on your puter. Seems it "tracks" six-seven points to insure the computer it is on is it's computer. MoBo, CPU, vid card, sound card.... Change too many and it requires you to call Micro$oft for re-authorization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuildSF4 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 If you bought (or buy) a new drive they generally come with an install disk that has a disk copy program on it. If you didn't get the disk then get a copy of Norton Ghost. PS- With the larger hard drives (>120 gig) and older motherboards (older than about a year) the install disk is the way to go since the motherboard may only see a max size of ~ 130 Gig (don't remember the exact #) and the install will patch this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TDean Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I too need to get the contents of my old drive over to my new machine. I was going to "slave" the entire HD into my new cabinet (plug it in with the extra connector supplied on the new drive's ribbon cable). I suppose the downside would be that I would then have 2 drives to deal with. But...If I have the 2 drives on the same machine, couldn't I just copy from the old drive to the new fairly easily? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuildSF4 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I too need to get the contents of my old drive over to my new machine.I was going to "slave" the entire HD into my new cabinet (plug it in with the extra connector supplied on the new drive's ribbon cable). I suppose the downside would be that I would then have 2 drives to deal with. But...If I have the 2 drives on the same machine, couldn't I just copy from the old drive to the new fairly easily? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Copying won't work the files end up haphazardly on the disk. Files need to be in specific locations dependent on the operating system. You would need to use Ghost or another cloning system (Clone uses bit for bit copying, copy does file by file copy, I know it doesn't sound different but it is, also not to mention the startup partition, setting active partitions...). Also if you are moving the disk/files to a new machine you may (dependent on operting system) need to re-activate or reload the operating system and some of the software (the motherboard is the critical component). Also depending on the operating system you can't just copy the programs or run them from another hard drive, as they have to be referenced properly in the registry... (Anti-pirate from Micro...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Boudrie Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Norton Ghost does a "logical clone". It's not a bit-for-bit copy - otherwise, it would not be possible to copy a smaller drive to a larger one. It is a "logical bit for bit" copy in that all files, directory structures, NTFS alternate data streams on files (a truly obscure feature hardly anyone uses), registry settings, hidden files, boot records, boot loaders, etc. are copies. Simply put, Ghost cloning offers the best features of a logical and a physical copy in a wonderfully convenient and highly reliable package. I've had bad luck with the free software included with Maxtor drives with NTFS files sytems. Thou gettuth what thou payuth for, and Ghost earns its price. Also, you need to be aware of second order effects if you use Ghost (or similar) to do an install by cloning a drive to a new system and then use both systems on the same network. If you do this, you need to make your host names unique, IP's unique (if static), and make sure you have no applications which require unique per-node registry keys (generally relevant if you are setting up a cluster or a fibre switched storage area network). These issues are not a concern if you're simply using Ghost to replace an old drive with a new one. I had to "ghost upgrade" 3 systems from 8GB to 120GB hard drives a few years ago. Each upgrade went perfectly and took 30 minutes - 5 minutes to do the drive switching and 25 minutes for Ghost to do it's copying. Everything worked perfectly, first try. And, a final suggestion: Consider running a Windows "check for errors" before Ghosting. This will leave the disk in a "nice" state before you ask Ghost to understand it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Yes, don't clone a crappy system. Make sure the source volume is OK like Rob said. And Rob is also right that the clone will only need software re-activation if the hardware is not the same (clone to new machine). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GuildSF4 Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 (edited) Norton Ghost does a "logical clone". <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Thanks, didn't phrase that one correctly. I had to "ghost upgrade" 3 systems from 8GB to 120GB hard drives a few years ago. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> To upgrade to larger than 120 GB doesn't always work with Ghost, I have done this upgrade several times in the last year, seems to be motherboard dependent. (The included software (Maxtor, Seagate, etc) generally works but can be problematic.) PS-XP must be Service pack 1 or later to use more than ~130GB on the drive. Edited September 4, 2005 by GuildSF4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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