Replacing winxp hard drive

[Woodchuck]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Presently I have a 40g hard drive as C: which runs my operating system and
would like to replace it with a 60g drive. Can I just use the Western
Digital drive utilities to copy everything over and then make the new drive
the boot drive? I have heard winxp is picky about installing a new drive.

thanks

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Woodchuck wrote:
> Presently I have a 40g hard drive as C: which runs my operating system and
> would like to replace it with a 60g drive. Can I just use the Western
> Digital drive utilities to copy everything over and then make the new drive
> the boot drive? I have heard winxp is picky about installing a new drive.

That will work fine. The 'trick', or secret, to it is:

1. Do NOT boot from the old drive with the new drive installed. Boot only
the WD drive utilities to make the copy.

2. After the copy REMOVE the old drive before you boot the new one.

The reason is XP serializes hard drives (partitions, actually) when they're
detected and assigned a drive letter. That assignment remains regardless of
where the drive is 'located' (I.E. master/slave, primary/seconadry IDE
channel). So, if you boot the old drive with the new one installed the new
one will be assigned drive 'D' (typically but could be another letter) and
will then BE 'D' even after the copy (unless the copy is smart enough to
destroy that identifier). Which means the copied drive will not be able to
find the O.S., that should be on 'C', because it's on 'D'.

Secondly, assuming you do item 1 properly, you'll have an 'unidentified
drive' when it first boots from itself BUT the original drive, if you don't
remove it, is still drive 'C', even though you've moved it to 'slave', so
the new drive will see the old 'C', operate from that, and 'identify'
itself as 'D'. You'll then have a scrambled drive setup where the system is
booting from the new drive but still using the old one as 'C'. If you
REMOVE the old drive, as mentioned in item 2, then, when the new drive
comes up, it will find no 'C', but a 'new' drive (itself) and the new drive
will be assigned 'C', which is what you want.

The old drive can be added back in AFTER the first complete boot of the new
drive since the new drive will have been assigned 'C' by that time and the
system will not allow two 'C' drives. That will force the old one to change
because the drive letter on the boot drive (the new one, now) can't be changed.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

Woodchuck:

> Presently I have a 40g hard drive as C: which runs my operating
> system and would like to replace it with a 60g drive. Can I just use
> the Western Digital drive utilities to copy everything over and then
> make the new drive the boot drive?

Yes. Install the new drive as a slave and then use the WD utility to ghost
the old drive to the new. Then install the new drive as master.
--
Mac Cool

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"Woodchuck" <stv_euroski@yahoo.comXXX> wrote in message
news:CDFAd.651$YU1.217@fe61.usenetserver.com...
> Presently I have a 40g hard drive as C: which runs my operating system and
> would like to replace it with a 60g drive. Can I just use the Western
> Digital drive utilities to copy everything over and then make the new
drive
> the boot drive? I have heard winxp is picky about installing a new drive.
>
> thanks
>
>
You can copy it but you'll need to call M$ for a new number. Evidently just
changing non OS drives can be enough to trigger it.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"T Shadow" <knone@zilch.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:XVIAd.23968$LW1.17873@fe2.columbus.rr.com...

| "Woodchuck" <stv_euroski@yahoo.comXXX> wrote in message
| news:CDFAd.651$YU1.217@fe61.usenetserver.com...
| > Presently I have a 40g hard drive as C: which runs my operating system
and
| > would like to replace it with a 60g drive. Can I just use the Western
| > Digital drive utilities to copy everything over and then make the new
| drive
| > the boot drive? I have heard winxp is picky about installing a new
drive.
| >
| > thanks
| >
| >
| You can copy it but you'll need to call M$ for a new number. Evidently
just
| changing non OS drives can be enough to trigger it.

I've changed drives three times on this XP-Pro machine, first from PATA to
SATA, then from single SATA to SATA RAID0 with no prompt for re-activation.
It takes more than just a drive change.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:19:10 -0600, "Bob Davis"
<iclicknix@cox.net> wrote:


>It takes more than just a drive change.
>

agreed

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
news:2ms9t018k8kme4ug4fdp9sr4aq5662lp9e@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:19:10 -0600, "Bob Davis"
> <iclicknix@cox.net> wrote:
>
>
> >It takes more than just a drive change.
> >
>
> agreed
>
I replaced a dvd burner, putting it in place of the HD on the
Primary/Secondary and moved the HD to the Seconday/Primary the old burner
had been on. That was enough to trigger it.

Hope your right. I'd like to replace that hard drive with one with 8MB
cache. The re-activation is a PIA.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

On Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:26:38 GMT, "T Shadow"
<knone@zilch.com.invalid> wrote:

>"kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
>news:2ms9t018k8kme4ug4fdp9sr4aq5662lp9e@4ax.com...
>> On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:19:10 -0600, "Bob Davis"
>> <iclicknix@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> >It takes more than just a drive change.
>> >
>>
>> agreed
>>
>I replaced a dvd burner, putting it in place of the HD on the
>Primary/Secondary and moved the HD to the Seconday/Primary the old burner
>had been on. That was enough to trigger it.
>
>Hope your right. I'd like to replace that hard drive with one with 8MB
>cache. The re-activation is a PIA.
>

I don't remember the exact timing but it also takes into
account other changes you made within a certain period of
time, prior to any drive swaps. Google will find the
details.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt (More info?)

"T Shadow" <knone@zilch.com.invalid> wrote in message
news:25fBd.44858$mA3.27069@fe2.columbus.rr.com...
| "kony" <spam@spam.com> wrote in message
| news:2ms9t018k8kme4ug4fdp9sr4aq5662lp9e@4ax.com...
| > On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 23:19:10 -0600, "Bob Davis"
| > <iclicknix@cox.net> wrote:
| >
| >
| > >It takes more than just a drive change.
| > >
| >
| > agreed
| >
| I replaced a dvd burner, putting it in place of the HD on the
| Primary/Secondary and moved the HD to the Seconday/Primary the old burner
| had been on. That was enough to trigger it.
|
| Hope your right. I'd like to replace that hard drive with one with 8MB
| cache. The re-activation is a PIA.

Also, if you haven't activated in the past 120 days you should be able to
reactivate automatically (i.e., no via phone).