Transferring old dell hard drive (including OS) to a new hard drive in

nelly317

February 8, 2009 6:35:47 PM

Hey guys, I really need help with this issue that I am having with hard drives and booting. What I need to do is transfer all the contents including the OS (so I don't need to reinstall any programs) from an Dell hard drive IDE to a new SATA hard drive and put that new hard drive into a new computer (not back into a dell). Anyways, I have done a variety of things but have never booted into windows from the old hard drive. Anybody willing to shed some light on this tricky situation?

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MrLinux

February 9, 2009 3:47:08 AM

Won't work; firstly Windows is configured on instalation according to the hardware it finds, so it can't boot if the hardware suddenly changes; secondly DELL builds of Windows look for a DELL BIOS and won't boot/install if it doesn't find it.

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MRFS

February 9, 2009 12:58:54 PM

Try this:

(1) make a drive image file of the Dell IDE C: drive e.g. with Symantec's GHOST;

(2) restore that drive image to a partition of the same or larger size
on the new SATA drive, e.g. wired to an available SATA/eSATA port;

(3) set the BIOS in the new computer to boot from the new SATA drive;

(4) re-install Windows from an OEM disc but without formatting C: first.

This step should overwrite all key OS files
and leave your program files intact.

If the Dell has no SATA ports, you can output
a GHOST drive image to a DVD disc, and
then the GHOST restore step can read that disc.

We did a similar thing recently when
we needed to switch from "Standard IDE"
mode to "RAID" mode on the primary SATA
connectors. It worked!

p.s. having an OEM disc of Windows
is always a good idea!

MRFS

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nelly317

February 11, 2009 3:02:39 AM

MRFS said:

Try this:

(1) make a drive image file of the Dell IDE C: drive e.g. with Symantec's GHOST;

(2) restore that drive image to a partition of the same or larger size
on the new SATA drive, e.g. wired to an available SATA/eSATA port;

(3) set the BIOS in the new computer to boot from the new SATA drive;

(4) re-install Windows from an OEM disc but without formatting C: first.

This step should overwrite all key OS files
and leave your program files intact.

If the Dell has no SATA ports, you can output
a GHOST drive image to a DVD disc, and
then the GHOST restore step can read that disc.

We did a similar thing recently when
we needed to switch from "Standard IDE"
mode to "RAID" mode on the primary SATA
connectors. It worked!

p.s. having an OEM disc of Windows
is always a good idea!

MRFS

Actually, before I even read you're post I did the same exact steps you suggested and it worked! Thanks anyways though and for others who are having this issue, I used xxclone to copy hdd (but you can use anything) and then I used an OEM XP disc to repair installation and then it began installing windows. When it booted up I was back at the original OS! But MRFS's way should work to. (btw I didn't need to do you're little sata truck but maybe others will)...

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