I have purchased a new hard drive that I intend to use as my C:\ drive.
Could someone please advise me the best method to transfer my current C:
drive's info., to include the OS to the new drive? I'm open for any advice
or documentation that I may follow. My OS is XP Pro.
I've reviewed the XP file and settings transfer wizard, but I don't know if
that's the route I want to go.
This was posted April 15, 2004 in alt.comp.hardware.homebuilt by Jim. I
tried it and it works great.
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Here's one way, and it's FREE:
1) Download BootIt NG (
http://www.bootitng.com ). Unzip, execute
bootitng.exe, and create the floppy disk (or ISO and burn it, your
choice).
Set aside for now.
2) Shutdown PC and move old HD to either slave on primary IDE channel,
or
primary on secondary IDE channel. Just so long as it becomes the
subordinate HD (to the new HD).
3) Boot the BootIt NG floppy (or CD). When the Welcome screen appears,
hit
Cancel (to abort the install). Follow the prompts to the desktop, then
select Partition Work.
4) Your new HD should be listed as HD0 (and verifiable as such since it
has
no partitions). The old HD should be HD1, and all partitions listed
when
selected. Simply Copy and Paste your existing partition(s), one by one,
from HD1 (the old HD) to HD0 (the new HD). Following the Copy of each
partition, feel free to Resize it (most people are moving to larger HDs,
so
this is to be expected).
5) Once all partitions are copied, make sure HD0 (the new HD) is
selected
and hit View MBR. Make sure the bootable partition is listed first
*and*
marked active (it normally is, but if not, do so now, manually). Hit
Std
MBR, hit Apply, then Close to exit Partition Work. Remove the floppy/CD
and
shutdown.
6) Remove the *old* HD, reboot, and you'll be running off the new HD!
When XP reloads, it will probably want to reboot (the new HD will be
seen as
a new device). Rebooting is not really necessary, but do so if you
wish. I
recommend keeping the old HD off the system and untouched for a while
until
you feel comfortable that all is well with the new drive. Consider it
your
backup! If anything goes wrong, you can always start the whole process
over
and try again. The procedures I've outlined are NON-DESTRUCTIVE to your
original HD and data! Once you feel confident all is OK, you can add
the
old HD back, clean it up (use BootIt NG again, if you like), and use it
for
data storage, perhaps.
HTH
Jim
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