If you are realy buying everything new, just forget about cloning. All
hardware will (almost) certainly be different. A one to one copy will give
you much more problems deleting and reinstalling drivers then intalling from
scratch will give you. Besides, all little problems you have right now on
your system will also be present in your new system if you clone the system.
If you buy a new system, I recommand to install everything from scratch, and
place your old harddisk (temporarely) as a slave drive in your new system.
If you are not 100% sure about viruses on your old PC, be sure to first
install a virusscanner (for example
http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php) before installing your old
harddrive into your new computer. Be sure to check the jumpers of your
harddisk before installing it (Nothing terrible will go wrong, but booting
will fail, until you got the jumpers sorted out. I don't recommand the
CableSelect mode, some hardware seems to ignore this setting...)
Please check your Harddisk usermanual (or manufaturer website for this)
After you have copied everything from your old harddisk (Don't forget: most
of the times there aare also documents you want outside the "My Documents"
folder, like emails, contacts, images, music, office document, for office:
templates, some program settings maybe a screensaver or two, Fonts!!!!!)
Also be sure to note dialup/internet settings like provider, username, phone
number, password, proxy settings, ect... (If eveytime someone forgets about
this i got a nickle, good old BillyBoy would only be the second welthiest)
Also: If you have registerd (legal) software check if you got the serial
numbers or try to look them up, before you take the harddisk out of your old
computer...
I know, this all seems like a lot of work, and it could be, but if you realy
buy new hardware (other than bigger harddisks, aditional ram or a cd-rom)
you're better of this way.
If you are only planning to buy a bigger harddisk and put it into the old
system, you could take a look at:
http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm
<Ripped From the site>
PC INSPECTOR™ clone maxx is the new professional hard drive copying program
from CONVAR. Using the new direct DMA support, data can be copied from hard
drives in high speed mode with speeds up to 3.3 GB per minute.
This high speed is achieved by PC INSPECTOR™ clone maxx through intelligent
inspection of the PC motherboard and the hard drive controller. The software
independently determines the fastest data transmission rate and achieves
these exceptional speeds through optimal utilization of the DMA chipset on
the motherboard of your PC.
PC INSPECTOR™ clone maxx can be started directly from a boot diskette. The
copying process is always based on the physical drive and is independent of
the file system (e.g. FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, HPFS, NTFS, Ext2, Reiser, etc.)
or the number of partitions.
The full version of PC INSPECTOR™ clone maxx can be obtained at no cost from
the sponsor "CONVAR – Die Datenretter™"
</Ripped rom the site>
MightyKitten