Copy Windows folder to new hard drive

[donstrack]

My hard drive failed (corrupt MBR and partition table). I have two
external harddrives that I use for backup, and sacrificed one for a new
C drive. I slaved the busted hard drive as a secondary drive. I can
still see all of the files on the old drive - it just won't boot.

On the replacement, I figured that the new Windows installation would
simply reformat the drive and install itself as a clean install. But it
turns out that it saw that there was 105 Gig free and went ahead with
the install, with the screen filling up with fast moving messages about
fixing security and repairing orphan files. The result is that all the
backed-up files are still on the replacement drive.

But that's not my question. The old drive works fine as the second
internal drive, and I can still see all the old system files, including
the entire Windows folder, the program files, and all the documents and
setting folder.

Can I simply reboot from a floppy and copy all of the Windows, Program
Files, and Documents and Settings folders over to the replacement
drive. I am hoping to not have to re-install all my applications, and I
have about a week's worth of email that was not backed up. Thanks.

Don Strack

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

But that's not my question. The old drive works fine as the second
internal drive, and I can still see all the old system files, including
the entire Windows folder, the program files, and all the documents and
setting folder.

Can I simply reboot from a floppy and copy all of the Windows, Program
Files, and Documents and Settings folders over to the replacement
drive. I am hoping to not have to re-install all my applications, and I
have about a week's worth of email that was not backed up. Thanks.

Don Strack

Yes, you can. Here is one option:
1. Temporarily install the new disk as a secondary master in some
other WinXP/2000 PC.
2. Temporarily install the bad disk as a secondary slave in that same
WinXP/2000 PC.
3. From a Command Prompt, use xcopy /s /h /c /o /y to copy the
bad disk to the new disk.
4. Run diskmgmt.msc and mark the partition on the new disk as
"active".
5. Install the new disk in its on PC. If WinXP will not boot, boot
the machine into Recovery Console mode, then run these
commands:
fixboot
fixmbr