Re: cloning system hard drive

Tim Cole wrote:

I know there's a post with various answers with some of these questions answered, but I'm not sure all questions have been answered.
And, No, I can't afford a "professional," all they ever seem to do is reformat, reload.
I need to install a larger primary drive but want to keep my WinXP OS and many, many programs with their patches and upgrades intact. In effect, I want to completely clone my present boot drive to another, larger boot drive.
What software is best? Ghost, Aconis, or XXCopy? and what versions? I want the easiest and the best, not necessarily the cheapest.
What process should I use? Can I install the new drive as primary (in place of the present boot drive), format it accordingly (ntfs? can I do that without XP in place?) then use a cloning program to transfer everything from current primary to secondary while keeping or transferring the boot sector?
Upon initiation of the new boot drive, will XP require reregistration? (Bear in mind that I will still have my old boot drive available in case of problems.)

For a one time issue you don't need to buy software. The drive should come with a utility to clone the old drive. If it's retail boxed it should have a utility floppy or CD for this, or download the utility from the drive manufacturer's web site.

The key is that once the drive is cloned removed the other primary drive so the only drive in the system for the first boot is the new drive.

Which software is best? You'll get different opinions. Both Ghost and Acronis True Image work well.


--
Rock
MS MVP  Windows - Shell/User

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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Transferring Windows OS from IDE to SCSI
    ... > try booting the clone on the SCSI drive, ... > drive and it will detect the install and ask if you want to ... I've got an old version of Ghost 2000 IIRC. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • cloning system hard drive
    ... want to completely clone my present boot drive to another, ... Ghost, Aconis, or XXCopy? ... Can I install the new drive as primary (in place ... then use a cloning program to transfer everything from ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Hard Drive Upgrade using Maxblast
    ... drive to store the image you create (IDE, ... Install Ghost on a workstation and create a set of Ghost boot floppies. ... > research into this issue before I run off and clone the drive. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: My successful hard drive cloning
    ... I do basically the same thing with Ghost - works great! ... >I use Ghost clone option and clone the master to the ... >When I install new software, ... >backup to master disk copy with Ghost. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: Copied HD boot problem
    ... I have the Ghost 3.0 DOS boot disk floppy that I always have been using for ... which doesn't clone, just copy/backup/restore. ... >> After that defragging, I was unable to clone my Master Hd, receiving the ... >> Symantec Tech Support advised me to purchase Symantec System Works 2005 ...
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