An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

[Need a miracle]

Hi:

I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my operating
system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it is up and running
again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB RAID 0
system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided Microsoft's advice
about dual operating systems) and another 250GB ATA hard drive.

The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of retirement.

So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively painless way
of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth of installations and
settings -- directly to one of the more reliable storage devices?

Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life *should*
be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly slow
installation start and restart, while digging up old serial numbers and
installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say "no, you
technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this. Microsoft cares
about you. You should apologize to the company for holding such a low opinion
of it ..."

I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture remain
identical.

Thanks,
Richard

 

[sgopus]

Get Acronis True Image , it will clone your old drive to the new drive,
(requires two drives hooked up to the system)

 

[Andrew E.]

XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it
will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot
to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to
C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent
letter,
then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no
diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

 

[GHalleck]

XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it
will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot
to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to
C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:
XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent
letter,
then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no
diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

That is so cumbersome. The easy and painless route is via Acronis True
Image or Ghost or any other hard drive cloning software, shareware or
freeware. Moreover, think about it...xcopy plus "repair" does not cut it,
especially when there are numerous updates post facto to the original
installation and just how many people would have made a slipstreamed copy
of the XP installation cdrom with all of these updates, including SP3, to
use for the repair?

 

[Anteaus]

XCOPY will also not work from the running OS, as it did with Win9x. Plus, it
does not solve the issue of the bootloader needing reinstalled.

Add to that, those pesky permissions on NTFS may prevent EVEN an
Administrator from copying all files. (whoever designed this feature had a
bad day, IMHO)

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That is so cumbersome.

And it doesn't work reliably.

 

[John John (MVP)]

A simple and safe test that anyone can run will quickly and definitely
put your "solution" to rest. At a Command Prompt issue:

cd\
md c:\test
xcopy %systemroot%system32\config c:\test

Of course the command will halt and give a pesky little message about a
sharing violation:

C:\>xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\test
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\DEFAULT
Sharing violation

The simpleton solution to this pesky little inconvenience is to use
xcopy's /c "ignore errors" switch! So let us try the test again with
Andrew's switches, minus the /e switch, for our little test we don't
need to copy all the subdirectories so we will keep things brief. Lets
try this again:

C:\>rd /s c:\test
c:\test, Are you sure (Y/N)? y

C:\>xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\test /c/h/k/r
Does C:\test specify a file name
or directory name on the target
(F = file, D = directory)? d
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\DEFAULT
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.LOG
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.sav
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM.LOG
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SecEvent.Evt
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY.LOG
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SOFTWARE
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.sav
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SysEvent.Evt
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG
Sharing violation
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.sav
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\TempKey.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\userdiff
C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\userdiff.LOG
9 File(s) copied

Hmmm... that seems to have copied the folder and the pesky "Sharing
Violations" were ignored! Now let us look more closely at the results,
let's use the DIR command to examine our folders:

C:\>dir %systemroot%\system32\config /a sh

Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32\config

05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> .
05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> ..
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 458,752 AppEvent.Evt
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 DEFAULT
07/03/2008 12:10 AM 1,024 default.LOG
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 94,208 default.sav
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 SAM
07/06/2008 08:54 AM 1,024 SAM.LOG
06/03/2008 12:33 PM 65,536 SecEvent.Evt
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 SECURITY
07/06/2008 07:32 AM 1,024 SECURITY.LOG
07/02/2008 11:54 PM 12,582,912 SOFTWARE
07/06/2008 09:55 AM 1,024 software.LOG
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 659,456 software.sav
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 393,216 SysEvent.Evt
07/02/2008 11:32 PM 6,553,600 SYSTEM
07/06/2008 09:54 AM 1,024 system.LOG
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 892,928 system.sav
05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> systemprofile
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 TempKey.LOG
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 262,144 userdiff
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 userdiff.LOG
19 File(s) 22,756,352 bytes

C:\>dir c:\test /a sh

Directory of c:\test

07/06/2008 09:55 AM <DIR> .
07/06/2008 09:55 AM <DIR> ..
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 458,752 AppEvent.Evt
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 94,208 default.sav
06/03/2008 12:33 PM 65,536 SecEvent.Evt
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 659,456 software.sav
07/02/2008 07:08 PM 393,216 SysEvent.Evt
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 892,928 system.sav
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 TempKey.LOG
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 262,144 userdiff
05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 userdiff.LOG
9 File(s) 2,828,288 bytes

The results are that xcopy copied 9 File(s) 2,828,288 bytes out of 19
File(s) 22,756,352 bytes from the original config folder, the solution
offered is a failure.

John

 

[HeyBub]

Hi:

I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my
operating system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it
is up and running again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB
RAID 0 system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided
Microsoft's advice about dual operating systems) and another 250GB
ATA hard drive.

The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of
retirement.

So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively
painless way of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth
of installations and settings -- directly to one of the more reliable
storage devices?

Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life
*should* be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly
slow installation start and restart, while digging up old serial
numbers and installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say
"no, you technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this.
Microsoft cares about you. You should apologize to the company for
holding such a low opinion of it ..."

I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture
remain identical.

Thanks,
Richard

Most hard disk manufacturers have a free utility to do exactly what you want
and the utility will be available on their website. You run the utility and
you end up with a hard drive identical to your original except it has more
available space.

Swap some cables and boot from the newly-created drive. You're good to go.

Manufacturers provide this as a marketing tool - the availability of such a
tool removes a big impediment to buying one of their larger drives.

 

[Richard in AZ]

Most hard disk manufacturers have a free utility to do exactly what you
want and the utility will be available on their website. You run the
utility and you end up with a hard drive identical to your original except
it has more available space.

Swap some cables and boot from the newly-created drive. You're good to go.

Manufacturers provide this as a marketing tool - the availability of such
a tool removes a big impediment to buying one of their larger drives.

To add to that, use the tools from the HD manufacturer for the drive that
you are moving to, not from.
I would suggest the 250 GB ATA drive manufacturer.
Remember to make that drive a "Master" after you are done.