Making new, 2nd hard drive new boot master

[Guest]

I added a new Western Digital hard drive to my XP machine and want to keep
both drives, but boot from the new one. My first attempts to do this, using
the Western Digital SW that came with it to copy the original files to the
new drive, resulted in a "hal" failure. I suspect that I failed because I
didn't properly reset the drive cables and jumpers.
After reading many postings, I think I know now what to do, and would like a
second opinion. Please tell me if the following approach is correct.

1. Use Setup, HD cables and jumpers to configure the old/new drives as
Master/Slave, and call for old drive for booting.
2. Use the WD software to copy all files from Master to Slave.
3. Reboot, going immediately to Setup. Change Master/Slave to New/Old
drive, and boot option to New drive. Accept changes, and then shut down
machine.
4. Change HD cables and jumpers to make New/Old as Master/Slave.
5. Button up and restart machine.

Is there any reason that it will not boot successfully from the new drive?
Thanks in advance for your counsel.

 

[Anna]

I added a new Western Digital hard drive to my XP machine and want to keep
both drives, but boot from the new one. My first attempts to do this,
using
the Western Digital SW that came with it to copy the original files to the
new drive, resulted in a "hal" failure. I suspect that I failed because I
didn't properly reset the drive cables and jumpers.
After reading many postings, I think I know now what to do, and would like
a
second opinion. Please tell me if the following approach is correct.

1. Use Setup, HD cables and jumpers to configure the old/new drives as
Master/Slave, and call for old drive for booting.
2. Use the WD software to copy all files from Master to Slave.
3. Reboot, going immediately to Setup. Change Master/Slave to New/Old
drive, and boot option to New drive. Accept changes, and then shut down
machine.
4. Change HD cables and jumpers to make New/Old as Master/Slave.
5. Button up and restart machine.

Is there any reason that it will not boot successfully from the new drive?
Thanks in advance for your counsel.

Joe Sp:
Your "plan of operation" is basically sound except for step 3.

After you successfully "clone" the contents of your old HDD to the new one,
disconnect your old HDD (the "source" HDD), connect the newly-cloned HDD as
Primary Master, and boot *only* with the newly-cloned HDD connected. I can
explain why if you need that information but follow my advice, OK?

After your newly-cloned HDD boots & functions without problems, you can
re:connect the old HDD either as a Slave to your new Master or on the
Secondary IDE channel. I assume you'll be using that drive for
backup/storage purposes.

In using the WD drive-to-drive program work slowly & carefully as you
proceed through the screens. Make certain you select the correct options,
the correct source & destination disks, etc.
Anna

 

[Rock]

I added a new Western Digital hard drive to my XP machine and want to keep
both drives, but boot from the new one. My first attempts to do this,
using
the Western Digital SW that came with it to copy the original files to the
new drive, resulted in a "hal" failure. I suspect that I failed because I
didn't properly reset the drive cables and jumpers.
After reading many postings, I think I know now what to do, and would like
a
second opinion. Please tell me if the following approach is correct.

1. Use Setup, HD cables and jumpers to configure the old/new drives as
Master/Slave, and call for old drive for booting.
2. Use the WD software to copy all files from Master to Slave.
3. Reboot, going immediately to Setup. Change Master/Slave to New/Old
drive, and boot option to New drive. Accept changes, and then shut down
machine.
4. Change HD cables and jumpers to make New/Old as Master/Slave.
5. Button up and restart machine.

Is there any reason that it will not boot successfully from the new drive?
Thanks in advance for your counsel.

After you clone the drive, shut down the system. Remove the old drive,
install the new drive as Master on the primary IDE channel. Jumper it
accordingly. Reboot only with the new drive. Once the new drive is
recognized as the boot drive and as drive C, turn the system off and install
the second drive as slave.

 

[Guest]

Many thanks. I will give it a try and confirm that it worked.

 

[Guest]

Many thanks. I will give it a try and confirm that it works.

 

[Rock]

Many thanks. I will give it a try and confirm that it works.

You're welcome.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to Anna and Rock's advice, I can report Mission Accomplished.
We had to do one other thing, however. Before going through the steps, we
reformatted the new drive to clean off all the stuff on it from previous
tries. We then imaged the old drive onto the new drive using the Western
Digital software, which then helped walk us through the process.l.

 

[Rock]

Thanks to Anna and Rock's advice, I can report Mission Accomplished.
We had to do one other thing, however. Before going through the steps, we
reformatted the new drive to clean off all the stuff on it from previous
tries. We then imaged the old drive onto the new drive using the Western
Digital software, which then helped walk us through the process.l.

Great, Joe, glad things worked out and thanks for posting back.