install xp on new hard drive/transfer of files to new hard drive?

[aaronep]

Tomorrow I will be purchasing a WD 255 gig hard drive. I've been told
to install the operating system fresh on a new hard drive and not to
transfer the Windows XP os from the old drive to the new drive.

My question is, what is the easiest method to transfer the remaining
applications and data from the old drive to the new drive without
transferring the operating system. I have GHOST that came with
Systemworks 2003 as well as software that will come with the new hard
drive.

Best, Aaron

 

[Go Tyler]

I guess your files are too large to put on a couple of cd's or a dvd's, yes?
Are you any good at taking your comp apart and connecting a seond drive? If
you are purchasing this new hdd then I assume you are putting it in
yourself. Put the pin on the master setting, take the cable off the other
hdd and put on the new hdd, then put the second part of the cable on the old
hdd. You need to set your old hdd for the slave position. These are little
rubber-like jumpers on the back of the hdd.

Then when you install xp on the new hdd, and if you connected the second
drive correctly, then both of your drives will show up in Explorer so you
can drag and drop them to your new drive.

 

[kony]

Tomorrow I will be purchasing a WD 255 gig hard drive. I've been told
to install the operating system fresh on a new hard drive and not to
transfer the Windows XP os from the old drive to the new drive.

Why were you told this?
It's a pretty common thing to do and works fine, but you
have to unplug the old drive for the first boot else the OS
will keep using it. In other words, hook new drive up, dupe
the old to the new before booting windows and then boot with
only the new drive hooked up, once.

My question is, what is the easiest method to transfer the remaining
applications and data from the old drive to the new drive without
transferring the operating system. I have GHOST that came with
Systemworks 2003 as well as software that will come with the new hard
drive.

Either of those will dupe the old drive to the new. Neither
will transfer apps and data from an old windows installation
to a new one.

"IF" your present windows installation works properly, if
you have no reason to reinstall windows other than this
supposed-need based on getting a new drive, just dupe the
old drive to new one with the HDD manufacturer's utility.

From a clean install the most reliable way to transfer apps
is to reinstall them, THEN copy over the apps' folders from
the old HDD to the new one, overwriting what was installed.
This will miss a lot, you'd still have registry settings you
could export and merge into the new registry, data stores
and documents to copy over from old drive to new.

In other words, if you're going to do a clean install, don't
touch the data on the old drive for awhile, so at worst you
can have it available to boot, copy off data, export
registry if necessary. This is all a hard way to go though
if all you really need is a complete duplicate of the
current OS /apps/etc, then just dupe it.

 

[Jan Alter]

--

Why were you told this?
It's a pretty common thing to do and works fine, but you
have to unplug the old drive for the first boot else the OS
will keep using it. In other words, hook new drive up, dupe
the old to the new before booting windows and then boot with
only the new drive hooked up, once.



Either of those will dupe the old drive to the new. Neither
will transfer apps and data from an old windows installation
to a new one.

"IF" your present windows installation works properly, if
you have no reason to reinstall windows other than this
supposed-need based on getting a new drive, just dupe the
old drive to new one with the HDD manufacturer's utility.

From a clean install the most reliable way to transfer apps
is to reinstall them, THEN copy over the apps' folders from
the old HDD to the new one, overwriting what was installed.
This will miss a lot, you'd still have registry settings you
could export and merge into the new registry, data stores
and documents to copy over from old drive to new.

In other words, if you're going to do a clean install, don't
touch the data on the old drive for awhile, so at worst you
can have it available to boot, copy off data, export
registry if necessary. This is all a hard way to go though
if all you really need is a complete duplicate of the
current OS /apps/etc, then just dupe it.

I can't think of a good reason why you couldn't use the WD copying utility
software to move your entire hard drive software to your new drive.
Give it a shot. What have you got to lose? By the way, you have backed up
your data, right?

There is also another program called Acronis True Image that will give you a
clone of your old hard drive to your new one. Works very nicely.