transfering data

[beliskner_thor]

okay heres whats going on

i just ordered a graphics card (a GeForce 7600 GS for those who would like to know), and my friend rabidbunny said that i should get a new hd that runs at 7200 rpm instead of my durrent 5400. so i ordered up a wd caviar 250 gb, 7200 rpm, ata100, hd.

okay now to the question, my question is how should i go about copying my old hard drive to my new one when i get it? i would like to transfer xp over also so that it is running on the faster hd also, now along with not knowing how to do the transfer, my old hd is partitioned with a small portion holding the original copy of xp and is inaccesable to anything other than system restore.

so how should i go about getting xp onto the new hd as well as the other files i have.

any help is apreciated

P.S. i plan on using the old hd as a backup so i dont wanna get rid of it

here are my specs if anyone wants to know them
currently:
-AMD Athalon XP 2600+
-2x 512 kingston DDR SDRAM
-120 Gb 5400 rpm IDE100
-Integrated GeForce 4 MX /w 64 Mb shared video memory

with upgrades:
-AMD Athalon XP 2600+
-2x 512 kingston DDR SDRAM
-120 Gb 5400 rpm IDE100
-250 Gb 7200 rpm IDE100 WD Caviar
-EVGA GeForce 7600 GS (AGP)

 

[GuyAmI]

One of the easier ways to do what you want would be to get your hands on a programme that can clone your HDD; something like Norton Partition Magic 8 or Acronix True Image 10 Home. I've heard good things about True Image but I've never used it myself but I have used Partiton Magic and it's always done what I've asked of it so I'll explain further with that although it's been a while.


For what you want to do, it would go something like this:

1) If you go with Partition Magic but for whatever reason don't have a manual, you can get one here:

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/pmagic/pmagic_8/manuals/PM8.PDF

It will come in handy, especially since I can't remember EVERY exact step.

2) When you get your new hardware, you might as well go and install the video card right off the bat. You could always do it after cloning the drive but you might as well get the easy stuff over with first. Your choice.

3) Depending on whether or not your old HDD is the only thing hooked up to the IDE cable it's attached to:

Old HDD only thing attached - set the jumper on the new HDD to slave and hook it up to the spare connector of the cable that your current HDD is hooked up to. Remember that the red stripe on the cable should be closest to the power connector.

Both connectors on cable already used - set the jumper on the new HDD to master and hook it up to the very end of another cable that's attached to the Secondary IDE controller on your Mother board. Remember about the red stripe.

4) Once you've got the drive hooked up, boot into windows and install your cloning programme if you already haven't.

5) You can either do the partitioning of the new hard drive now or you can do it through partition magic, either way is fine. Just make sure that the partition you'll clone onto is set as a Primary Partition.

6) Now, you can either go with the Copy Partition Wizard or if you want to do it manually go to page 48 of the manual and it'll walk you through copying your old C drive to the new HDD.

7) Depending on how large your C: drive is it may take a while to copy but when it's done, disconnect your old and new HDD, set the jumper on the new drive to Master and hook it up to the connector that your old drive was hooked into. Just set your old HDD off to the side for now.

8) Assuming everything has gone according to plan, your computer should boot up fine without any problems and you can go along comuting merily. But if something has happened, you'll have your old drive on hand to fall back on.

8a) If you want to change any of the partition sizes you can do that through Partition Magic as well; such as increasing the C: drive to something bigger.

9) If you're not in a hurry, I'd recommend keeping your old HDD off to the side for now and just using your system normally. If after about a week you haven't noticed any problems with your computer (eg. missing files, programmes acting hinky, general weirdness, etc.), then you can go about wiping your old drive and setting it up for whatever you want. A dedicated video/music/miscellaneous files drive. Your decision obviously.

If the cable your hooking into already has something on it, set the jumper on the drive to slave (red stripe towards power), plug the spare connector into it, plug in the power cable and you're good to go.

Other wise if the cable you're plugging into isn't already being used, set the jumper on the drive to master (red stripe towards power), plug in the connector (the end opposite the one plugged into your MB), plug in the power and you're good to go.

10) After everything is said and done you should have the two drives working in your system and a few hundred Gigs to play around with. Cheers.

 

[dagonoth]

I would personally recommend Acronis true Image 10. I've been using it for over a month and I can go back and forth between Vista and XP in about 15-20 minutes without a problem. True image 10 is brand new and works amazing. Norton ghost let me down after awhile and I've never used Partition Magic for cloning a harddrive(didn't even know it did that) I've only used it to resize partitions and I don't know if it works for Vista.

 

[n45w73]

WD has a free copier tool, called DataLifeGuard I think.
It may work for you

 

[PCcashCow]

You could use Bart PW, Sysprep, and create a bootble Ghost disk and just image the drive. You would only need to provide the raid driver, XP should pick everything else up. If this is your route, copy the i386 folder to the root.

 

[beliskner_thor]

http://www.blazelabs.com/index.htm