Cloning a XP installation

[Tarscher]

HI all,

I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD with the new
one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2 installation. Is there a
way I can clone the old one to the new one so I can start my pc from
the new HD (and remove the old one completely)?

Best regards
Stijn

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Visit the support web site of the manufacturer of your
new hard drive and search their knowledge base for
instructions and software designed to clone your drive.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| HI all,
|
| I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD with the new
| one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2 installation. Is there a
| way I can clone the old one to the new one so I can start my pc from
| the new HD (and remove the old one completely)?
|
| Best regards
| Stijn

 

[Kerry Brown]

HI all,

I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD with the new
one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2 installation. Is there
a way I can clone the old one to the new one so I can start my pc from
the new HD (and remove the old one completely)?

Best regards
Stijn

Most drive manufacturers have free software to do this. If it didn't come
with your drive go to the manufacturer's web site and download it. There are
also commercial programs available. Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost are
two very popular ones.

The procedure to do this is pretty much the same no matter which program you
use.

1) Turn off computer and unplug the power cord.
2) Install the new drive as a secondary drive.
3) Clone all the partitions on the old drive to the new drive. Most programs
have some means of changing the partition sizes so you can take advantage of
the extra space on the new drive.
4) Do not reboot into Windows after cloning the drive.
5) Power down the computer and unplug the power cord.
6) Remove the original drive.
7) Install the new drive as the primary drive.
8) Boot from the new drive.

You are done. If you want you can now reinstall the old drive as a secondary
drive and reformat it.

 

[Alias]

Most drive manufacturers have free software to do this. If it didn't come
with your drive go to the manufacturer's web site and download it. There are
also commercial programs available. Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost are
two very popular ones.

The procedure to do this is pretty much the same no matter which program you
use.

1) Turn off computer and unplug the power cord.
2) Install the new drive as a secondary drive.
3) Clone all the partitions on the old drive to the new drive. Most programs
have some means of changing the partition sizes so you can take advantage of
the extra space on the new drive.
4) Do not reboot into Windows after cloning the drive.
5) Power down the computer and unplug the power cord.
6) Remove the original drive.
7) Install the new drive as the primary drive.
8) Boot from the new drive.

You are done. If you want you can now reinstall the old drive as a secondary
drive and reformat it.

Or keep it as a back up.

Alias

 

[Tarscher]

Kerry Brown schreef:

Most drive manufacturers have free software to do this. If it didn't come
with your drive go to the manufacturer's web site and download it. There are
also commercial programs available. Acronis True Image and Norton Ghost are
two very popular ones.

The procedure to do this is pretty much the same no matter which program you
use.

1) Turn off computer and unplug the power cord.
2) Install the new drive as a secondary drive.
3) Clone all the partitions on the old drive to the new drive. Most programs
have some means of changing the partition sizes so you can take advantage of
the extra space on the new drive.
4) Do not reboot into Windows after cloning the drive.
5) Power down the computer and unplug the power cord.
6) Remove the original drive.
7) Install the new drive as the primary drive.
8) Boot from the new drive.

You are done. If you want you can now reinstall the old drive as a secondary
drive and reformat it.

Thanks for the info. I have some questions left though.
Does Win XP give me the possibility to clone a partition or do I need a
tool from the HD manufacturer as described? When I clone the partition
and try to boot from that new HD, won't Win XP complain about the
difference in HD driver and give me a blue screen of death? Doesn't
Windows create a system specific installation, also a specific HD
driver, that won't work with the new HD?

Best regards
Stijn
(Bewerkingsfunctie is uitgeschakeld tijdens de spellingcontrole)
Spellingcontrole afbreken

 

[peter]

You will need 3rd party program to clone your HD....the program usually can
be downloaded from the HD manufacturers website.
HD "drivers" are not specific to HD but rather to the mobo
connection....since you are not changing Mobo the drivers will be the
same...unless you are moving from a EIDE HD to a SATA HD???......this
requires different drivers.
If things do not go as planned you can always use your XP Cd and do a
"Repair" installation which would update drivers but leave your
settings/programs alone.

peter

 

[Kerry Brown]

Kerry Brown schreef:


Thanks for the info. I have some questions left though.
Does Win XP give me the possibility to clone a partition or do I need
a tool from the HD manufacturer as described? When I clone the
partition and try to boot from that new HD, won't Win XP complain
about the difference in HD driver and give me a blue screen of death?
Doesn't Windows create a system specific installation, also a
specific HD driver, that won't work with the new HD?

Best regards
Stijn
(Bewerkingsfunctie is uitgeschakeld tijdens de spellingcontrole)
Spellingcontrole afbreken

XP doesn't have a built in way to clone a hard drive. You need a 3rd party
application. Unless you are changing from a PATA to SATA drive or PATA/SATA
to SCSI you don't need any special drivers. If something goes wrong you
always have your old drive for a backup. Don't erase it until you are sure
the new drive is working properly.

Kerry

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD
with the new one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2
installation. Is there a way I can clone the old one to the new
one so I can start my pc from the new HD (and remove the
old one completely)?

Best regards
Stijn

A very easy-to-use cloning utility that you can download and
use free for 30 days is Casper XP (see
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ ). You can tell it to clone
the entirety of one drive onto the entirety of another drive (good
for upgrading to a larger drive), or you can tell it to clone just
one partition from one drive to another (that may or may not
have other partitions on it). It will automatically copy the old
drive's Master Boot Record and it will mark the new partition
"active" so that the clone can be a booting drive.

When you start up the new clone for the FIRST TIME, don't
let it see the operating system on the old drive. The easiest
way to do this is to just disconnect the old drive. Thereafter,
you can boot the new drive with the old operating system
visible, and there will be no harm. If the new drive is jumpered
and connected as the old drive, it will control booting. Otherwise,
you may have to adjust the setting in the boot.ini file to make
the new drive the boot controlling drive.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Plato]

I have just bought a new HD and want to remove my old HD with the new
one. The old HD contains a windows XP pro SP2 installation. Is there a
way I can clone the old one to the new one so I can start my pc from
the new HD (and remove the old one completely)?

http://www.xxclone.com/