Re: Cloning a XP installation

Tarscher wrote:
Kerry Brown schreef:

Tarscher wrote:
HI all,

I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD with the
new one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2 installation. Is
there a way I can clone the old one to the new one so I can start
my pc from the new HD (and remove the old one completely)?

Best regards
Stijn

Most drive manufacturers have free software to do this. If it didn't
come with your drive go to the manufacturer's web site and download
it. There are also commercial programs available. Acronis True Image
and Norton Ghost are two very popular ones.

The procedure to do this is pretty much the same no matter which
program you use.

1) Turn off computer and unplug the power cord.
2) Install the new drive as a secondary drive.
3) Clone all the partitions on the old drive to the new drive. Most
programs have some means of changing the partition sizes so you can
take advantage of the extra space on the new drive.
4) Do not reboot into Windows after cloning the drive.
5) Power down the computer and unplug the power cord.
6) Remove the original drive.
7) Install the new drive as the primary drive.
8) Boot from the new drive.

You are done. If you want you can now reinstall the old drive as a
secondary drive and reformat it.

--
Kerry

Thanks for the info. I have some questions left though.
Does Win XP give me the possibility to clone a partition or do I need
a tool from the HD manufacturer as described? When I clone the
partition and try to boot from that new HD, won't Win XP complain
about the difference in HD driver and give me a blue screen of death?
Doesn't Windows create a system specific installation, also a
specific HD driver, that won't work with the new HD?

Best regards
Stijn
(Bewerkingsfunctie is uitgeschakeld tijdens de spellingcontrole)
Spellingcontrole afbreken

XP doesn't have a built in way to clone a hard drive. You need a 3rd party
application. Unless you are changing from a PATA to SATA drive or PATA/SATA
to SCSI you don't need any special drivers. If something goes wrong you
always have your old drive for a backup. Don't erase it until you are sure
the new drive is working properly.

Kerry


--
Kerry


.

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