JMB said:
Dell tells me my hard drive is going bad. They are sending
a replacement. Powerquest Drive Image 7 says it can take
an image of the entire hard drive, and you can just copy it
to the new drive, with no need to reinstall anything.
Sounds almost too good to be true.
Anyone had success doing so in XP?
The simplest way usually is to use a simple disk copy utility from the
drive manufacturer. Many manufacturers have free software specifically
for your intended purpose -- such as Seagate's "Disk Wizard", Maxtor's
"MaxBlast", and WD's "Data Lifeguard Tools". If you don't get a floppy
disk with your new HD, you can download it from the manufacturer's
website. To use, it's as simple as plugging in both HD's, boot from the
floppy, copy one HD to the other, remove old HD, put new HD in its
place, and reboot.
Do *not* install the new HD first and try to format it with XP; just put
it in bare and boot the utility floppy. (Many people make this mistake,
which gives XP a chance to give the new HD a different drive letter,
which can screw things up.)
Do *not* leave the old HD installed as a slave when you first boot the
new HD. Get the system back up and running with the new HD by itself
first. After the new HD is running properly as a single-HD system, you
may reformat and install the old HD as a slave if you want.
If the manufacturer's utility doesn't work (some people experience a
glitch here or there), you can always buy/use something like DriveImage,
Ghost, or BootIt NG. Stay away from DI7 -- PQ "broke" a successful
product, as DI 2002 worked fine. For best results, you want something
that will operate from a floppy boot disk, not from within Windows.
Yes, DI and Ghost can each be installed in Windows, but that's not as
reliable as running them from floppies when your subject is the OS
partition itself -- it's a little like trying to change your car tire
while you're still inside the car driving down the road.
