Change hard drive

[§Chrissi§]

Hi All,

I have a dell PC with Windows XP (SP2). The hard drive is too small (40GB).
Can I copy all the files from it to a new hard drive and then replace it
with the new hard drive? Can I still keep the license of XP?


Thanks a lot.

Chriss.

 

[Malke]

Hi All,

I have a dell PC with Windows XP (SP2). The hard drive is too small
(40GB). Can I copy all the files from it to a new hard drive and then
replace it
with the new hard drive? Can I still keep the license of XP?

Your new hard drive will come with cloning software so you can clone your
old hard drive to the new one. Or purchase Acronis True Image and image the
old hard drive and restore that image to the new drive. True Image is very
handy to have in any case. You can keep the old hard drive installed as a
slave if you like for extra storage.

Yes, the license you have for your Dell is valid for the new installation on
the new hard drive.

Malke

 

[Nonny]

Your new hard drive will come with cloning software so you can clone your
old hard drive to the new one. Or purchase Acronis True Image and image the
old hard drive and restore that image to the new drive.

Cloning would be simpler. Imaging would require yet another drive.

 

[Keith W]

Your new hard drive will come with cloning software so you can clone your
old hard drive to the new one. Or purchase Acronis True Image and image
the
old hard drive and restore that image to the new drive. True Image is very
handy to have in any case. You can keep the old hard drive installed as a
slave if you like for extra storage.

Yes, the license you have for your Dell is valid for the new installation
on
the new hard drive.

Correction. Your hard drive MAY (but probably won't) come with cloning
software, none that I bought ever has (of course it may be different here in
the UK). If you go to the manufacturers site for your new drive you should
be able to download suitable software. However, even that is not always
true (Hitachi don't for one) so you may be able to get it from the
manufacturer of the old drive. Many of these programs only work if one of
the drives is manufactured by the company the software came from.

 

[Big Al]

Your new hard drive will come with cloning software so you can clone your
old hard drive to the new one. Or purchase Acronis True Image and image the
old hard drive and restore that image to the new drive. True Image is very
handy to have in any case. You can keep the old hard drive installed as a
slave if you like for extra storage.

Yes, the license you have for your Dell is valid for the new installation on
the new hard drive.

Malke

Either way, you can get a trial copy of Acronis which will still do the
job. Then later search / keep an eye out for a deal on buying a copy.

 

[JS]

New drives like Maxtor and Western Digital (that are not OEM versions) come
with a CD that includes a drive copy utility.

If you have an OEM version go to the Manufacturer's web site.

JS

 

[db.·.. >]

if you install the new
drive as a secondary
disk you will find the
additional space useful
and without troubling
over reinstalling the
o.s. and the drivers and
patches and third party
software.

once installed you can
right click on my documents
and relocate the entire
section to the new disk.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Hi All,

I have a dell PC with Windows XP (SP2). The hard drive is too small
(40GB). Can I copy all the files from it to a new hard drive and then
replace it with the new hard drive? Can I still keep the license of XP?


Thanks a lot.

Chriss.

The 40 GB drive sets a flag in my mind. Your bios may not comprehend any
current hard drive past 120GB in capacity (137GB is they made one that
size).

XP understands and perceives drives over that capacity. However,
partitioning must occur on a PC with bios that supports such larger capacity
drives if made by XP. Similar with imaging and cloning software. Once done
on such a PC, can be moved to a PC with non-supporting bios for such HD
capacity. At least that has been my experiences....

 

[Bill in Co.]

The 40 GB drive sets a flag in my mind. Your bios may not comprehend any
current hard drive past 120GB in capacity (137GB is they made one that
size).

I'm just curious why you assumed this. (He may just have had a smaller 40
GB drive, and that's all there was to it).

 

[JS]

Yup, it set a flag in my mind also, but it was not mentioned in the original
post the make/model of the PC, if the new drive was already purchased and
what size it is.

The last time that I'm aware of that Dell offered a 40GB drive was late in
2004 which by then 48Bit LBA was the standard.

JS

 

[Lil' Dave]

I'm just curious why you assumed this. (He may just have had a smaller 40
GB drive, and that's all there was to it).

Generally, in this newsgroup, they go for larger size, and, most don't
select anything relatively "small" of today's availability of hard drive
capacity. What would you assume? If, not agreeing with my assumption; what
is your appropriate reply, and why?

BTW If the OP is doing something different than my assumption, he/she has
opportunity to reply to same as well.

 

[Nonny]

Generally, in this newsgroup, they go for larger size, and, most don't
select anything relatively "small" of today's availability of hard drive
capacity.

BinCo would call that person a "sheep" (baa-baa) or someone who is
trying to "keep up with the Joneses".

 

[Bill in Co.]

Generally, in this newsgroup, they go for larger size, and, most don't
select anything relatively "small" of today's availability of hard drive
capacity. What would you assume? If, not agreeing with my assumption;
what
is your appropriate reply, and why?

You *seemed* (to me) to be assuming that he (likely) might have that BIOS
limitation, based simply on the fact that he had a 40 GB drive - that's all.