Moving Files To New Hard Drive
ampig
I just upgraded the hard drive in my girlfriends computer. It had 80GB
and I added an additional 250GB drive. The OS is XP Home 2002. How do I
go about moving _*everything*_ to the larger hard drive?
Mark Adams
"ampig" wrote:
Use the cloning software that came with the new disk to clone the old disk
to the new. Everything is copied to the new disk and the installation is
bootable just as the old disk. When the cloning process has finished, shut
the machine down and remove the original disk before restarting. Do not
reformat the old disk until you are sure the cloned disk functions normally.
Mauricio
Do you want to increase your partitions to use up the entire new drive
or not?
(PeteCresswell)
>
>I just upgraded the hard drive in my girlfriends computer. It had 80GB
>and I added an additional 250GB drive. The OS is XP Home 2002. How do I
>go about moving _*everything*_ to the larger hard drive?
My suggestion would be:
- Don't move *everything*.
- Leave the system and apps on the 80-gigger (which is
plenty large enough for both)
- Move the data to the 250 and change the 250's drive
letter to "D:" (for "Data").
- Sell her on the idea of never, *ever* saving anything
to C: - that everything gets saved to D:.
- If you want to go the extra mile, move "MyData" and it's
subdirectories to D:.
- Now she is in a much better position if the system
goes South: She just re-images C: from the setup
disc that probably came with the PC and does not
lose any data.
- If she wants to replace that PC with another one,
all she needs to worry about is copying the stuff
from D: or just installing that drive on the new box.
- She is also in a position to back up data much
more easily: just copy everything on D: to the
backup.
--
PeteCresswell
Patrick Keenan
"ampig" <ampig....@no.email.invalid> wrote in message
news:ampig....@no.email.invalid...
>
> I just upgraded the hard drive in my girlfriends computer. It had 80GB
> and I added an additional 250GB drive. The OS is XP Home 2002. How do I
> go about moving _*everything*_ to the larger hard drive?
Clone it. If you don't have software, download the free trial of Acronis
True Image.
Daave
I like this suggestion.
I would like to add that if OP's girlfriend uses OE, the Message Store
and Address Book can be relocated to D: as well.
~Sage
wrote:
Will this procedure work for an OEM XP version installed on a HD? My
HD on another PC is failing and this looks to be a good solution,
considering I only have restore disks, not the XP cd.
~Sage
Mark Adams
"~Sage" wrote:
> .
>
Sage, as far as I know you can clone any kind of operating system using this
procedure, as long as the source hard drive is in good enough shape to copy
the data off. The cloning tools that come from the hard drive manufacturers
are generally brand specific, meaning that the tool must come from the maker
of one of the drives (usually the destination drive). If your new hard drive
didn't come with a utility CD, you can download the utility from the maker's
website. You can get versions that can run from a floppy or a CD.
To use the cloning tool, Slave the new drive into your computer. Set the
computer to boot from the floppy or CD, put the disk in the drive and boot
the machine. Follow the instructions that came with new hard drive to make
the clone. The process runs off the boot disk while Windows isn't even
running, so it just copies everything from the source drive to the
destination drive regardless of what kind of data it is. This includes all
the viruses, spyware, and other malware that your source drive contains! ;-)
When the cloning is done, shut down the computer and remove the source
drive. Remove the utility disk from the drive and reboot the machine. It
should now boot on the new drive. Don't reformat the old drive until you are
absolutely sure that the clone is functioning correctly.
Barry Watzman
(Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi and one or two others) FULL RETAIL
BOXED drive, you might have gotten such software with the drive. It's
also possible that you can download such software if you got an OEM
drive (Western Digital has had, at times, downloadable versions of
Acronis drive software modified to work ONLY with Western Digital
drives). Otherwise you will have to find freeware or buy something.
After you get the partition copied to the new drive and bootable, it may
be only it's original size. You can use the "extend" command in Windows
XP to expand it, but, note, you will have to mount the 250GB drive as a
SECOND drive with some other drive as the boot drive (or even on another
computer) to do that. You can't use the extend command on an active
"C:" partition while Windows is running from that partition. Use the
Windows Help function to learn how to use the extend command (it's a
command line (DOS) command).
There are some pitfalls here; sometimes after you copy a partition, the
new drive won't boot. This can usually be fixed by running FDISK/MBR on
the drive from a bootable floppy or CD with DOS and FDISK on it. I have
no idea why this works, but it usually does. Do it BEFORE expanding or
creating any partitions that would go beyond the first 137 [decimal]
gigabytes of the drive.
~Sage
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
Thank you very much Mark! I don't have a new drive yet, but now I see
it would be a good move for me to find one that comes with cloning
software. My drive is clean, no evil things living there, it's just
sick. ;-)
~Sage
ampig
I think that I'll try Pete's suggestion. It seems simple and logical for
a non techie like myself.
(PeteCresswell)
>I like this suggestion.
>
>I would like to add that if OP's girlfriend uses OE, the Message Store
>and Address Book can be relocated to D: as well.
Seems to me like something in this vein sb built into Windows: A
single menu or popup (like PowerToys, but simplified) that
basically asks the user: "Which drive do you want to keep data
on?".
Keeping data on the system drive is such a patently bad idea that
I can't, for the life of me, figure out why MS would encourage it
through defaults.
--
PeteCresswell
(PeteCresswell)
>Keeping data on the system drive is such a patently bad idea that
>I can't, for the life of me, figure out why MS would encourage it
>through defaults.
Oops... It's starting to dawn on me: the context of re-imaging
the system would constitute an admission that the Windows OS
could go South... which I'd guess he marketing people at MS would
frown on.
--
PeteCresswell
Mark Adams
"~Sage" wrote:
> .
>
~Sage, the hard drive makers also have drive testing utilities for free
download as well. Test your drive; if it is truely failing, don't waste time
replacing it. It could go PFFFFFTTTTTT at any moment. Copy your data off to
external media while you still have a chance.
(PeteCresswell)
>I think that I'll try Pete's suggestion. It seems simple and logical for
>a non techie like myself.
The only hitch is tracking down the stuff that applications store
for you automagically like OutLook, MyDocuments, and so-forth.
It's not rocket science, it's worth the time, but it *does*
require a little investment.
--
PeteCresswell