Ghosting Hard Drive

[Stever]

I currently have a 40GB HD in my XP Pro box. I just bought a 160GB HD to
replace that drive (I have plans for the 40GB drive in another box). A
friend of mine told me that he can use his Norton Ghost software to
completely duplicate the contents of my 40GB drive onto the new 160GB drive
so that I don't need to reinstall anything on the new drive. Is that true?
Will Ghost copy over all the registration and other system info so that all
I need to do is boot from the new drive and all will be the same? No need
to re-install all the apps and such?

 

[Chris Holden]

I currently have a 40GB HD in my XP Pro box. I just bought a 160GB HD to
replace that drive (I have plans for the 40GB drive in another box). A
friend of mine told me that he can use his Norton Ghost software to
completely duplicate the contents of my 40GB drive onto the new 160GB drive
so that I don't need to reinstall anything on the new drive. Is that true?
Will Ghost copy over all the registration and other system info so that all
I need to do is boot from the new drive and all will be the same? No need
to re-install all the apps and such?

Yes this is possible, although I haven't had to do it for a while.
It would be wise to remove the 40Gb drive after the Ghost process but before
you boot the 120, or some of the paths in the registry could get screwed if
the machine boots with a %systemroot% on a disk with a letter different to
what it expects.
Chris

 

[M]

You two should be ashamed of yourselves. You should read the EULAs that come
with software and Norton Ghost is no different than any other retail
software, as far as I know it can only be used by the person who bought it.
Have a look at some of the other threads in this group. People like Carey
and others will call you thieves for sharing retail software. You are not
entitled to borrow your friends copy of Ghost. You must go out and buy it
for yourself to use it on your computer. These aren't necessarily my views
but according to EULAs and all the saints on this newsgroup you will be a
thief if you borrow software even if you only use it once.

 

[Chris Holden]

You two should be ashamed of yourselves. You should read the EULAs that come
with software and Norton Ghost is no different than any other retail
software, as far as I know it can only be used by the person who bought it.
Have a look at some of the other threads in this group. People like Carey
and others will call you thieves for sharing retail software. You are not
entitled to borrow your friends copy of Ghost. You must go out and buy it
for yourself to use it on your computer. These aren't necessarily my views
but according to EULAs and all the saints on this newsgroup you will be a
thief if you borrow software even if you only use it once.

SNIP

I wouldn't know about the single user EULA, so can't comment on what you can
or can't do with it.
At what point was I sharing retail software? I was sharing
knowledge/opinion. Should I be ashamed of that?
I would add that if the OP does not have a valid license, he should get one.
Chris

 

[Georges Jullien]

I currently have a 40GB HD in my XP Pro box. I just bought a 160GB HD to
replace that drive (I have plans for the 40GB drive in another box). A
friend of mine told me that he can use his Norton Ghost software to
completely duplicate the contents of my 40GB drive onto the new 160GB drive
so that I don't need to reinstall anything on the new drive. Is that true?
Will Ghost copy over all the registration and other system info so that all
I need to do is boot from the new drive and all will be the same? No need
to re-install all the apps and such?
Stever

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

It is possible to copy an XP system on a new disk using free tools see :
http://perso.numericable.fr/gjullien/copy_xp.htm
It is possible to keep the original system.
Georges Jullien

 

[CWatters]

Yes. It's possible to do it three ways with Ghost at least....

a) By hooking up both drives at the same time
b) By copying to CDR/DVDR and then back again to the new hard drive.
c) By networking two computers (copy yours to a folder on the other PC,
change drive, copy back).

Two things to watch out for:

Check your BIOS supports drives as big as 160G.

If you choose a) above don't allow WinXP to boot with both drives connected
(and that includes the reboot that Ghost will do after making the copy).
Aparrently WinXP gets very confused in this situation - but I've not tried
this to find out.

Colin

 

[Stever]

Cool. Thanks, guys. And thanks for the tip about checking the bios.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Cool. Thanks, guys. And thanks for the tip about checking the bios.

Additional point. Copying the partition to a new drive copies just
that: it does not copy the 'Master boot code' in the very first sector
of the disk, outside the partition. So when you try to boot from the
disk, it may fail. Remedy: Set the BIOS to boot CD before Hard Disk.
Boot the XP CD and, instead of Setup, take the immediate R for Repair.
Assume any password requested is blank, and TAB over.

Give
FixMBR
to write a fresh copy of that code