Moving XP Pro to a new HD

[C. Jon Hinkle]

I've read through the previous postings on this topic, and I still have a
problem.

I have an older machine, P-II 266/128 mb ram, with a 4 GB HD and a working
copy of xp pro on it. The 4 gigger is full. I want to clone the entire
drive to an 8 GB drive.

If I try Drive Image, it won't run because it requires 256 MB to boot from
the CD, and I don't have room to install it on the HD. I don't have a copy
of Ghost that works with XP. I can use Maxtor's maxblast to "clone" the
drive, but when I do, XP sees the 8 GB drive as "E" and the 4 GB drive as
"C", even if I set the new drive up as the master and the old drive up as
the slave.

If I try to change the drive letters, XP won't let me because the C: drive
has the pagefile on it, and the E: drive is the system drive. Moreover, if
I disconnect the 4 GB drive, the system won't boot, even though it appears
to me that when it does boot it is running off of the new drive. A pagefile
issue, I expect.

Also, XP refuses to do a clean install to the new drive with the old drive
disconnected. Loads up all the drivers and then says "loading windows" and
freezes.

Any thoughts?

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

I've read through the previous postings on this topic, and I still have a
problem.

I have an older machine, P-II 266/128 mb ram, with a 4 GB HD and a working
copy of xp pro on it. The 4 gigger is full. I want to clone the entire
drive to an 8 GB drive.

If I try Drive Image, it won't run because it requires 256 MB to boot from
the CD, and I don't have room to install it on the HD. I don't have a copy
of Ghost that works with XP. I can use Maxtor's maxblast to "clone" the
drive, but when I do, XP sees the 8 GB drive as "E" and the 4 GB drive as
"C", even if I set the new drive up as the master and the old drive up as
the slave.

If I try to change the drive letters, XP won't let me because the C: drive
has the pagefile on it, and the E: drive is the system drive. Moreover, if
I disconnect the 4 GB drive, the system won't boot, even though it appears
to me that when it does boot it is running off of the new drive. A pagefile
issue, I expect.

Also, XP refuses to do a clean install to the new drive with the old drive
disconnected. Loads up all the drivers and then says "loading windows" and
freezes.

Jon,

you could look into http://www.michna.com/kb/WxMove.htm and
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDriveLetterChangeSystemPartition.htm,
but I suspect some deeper problem with the new hard disk.

Another possibility is that the partition on the new disk has
not been set to active. But that should not be a problem with a
fresh installation. If a fresh installation does not work, then
you have a rather severe problem.

Have you tried to install Windows XP into a smaller partition,
say, 4 GB or just 1 GB, on the new drive? If that works, then
the problem is with the Extended INT13 services in the BIOS.
Perhaps they don't exist. A workaround would be to create a tiny
(20 MB) partition for the three boot files and a larger
partition for the rest of the drive.

Hans-Georg

 

[C. Jon Hinkle]

Thanks, I'll try it.

Jon,

you could look into http://www.michna.com/kb/WxMove.htm and
http://www.michna.com/kb/WxDriveLetterChangeSystemPartition.htm,
but I suspect some deeper problem with the new hard disk.

Another possibility is that the partition on the new disk has
not been set to active. But that should not be a problem with a
fresh installation. If a fresh installation does not work, then
you have a rather severe problem.

Have you tried to install Windows XP into a smaller partition,
say, 4 GB or just 1 GB, on the new drive? If that works, then
the problem is with the Extended INT13 services in the BIOS.
Perhaps they don't exist. A workaround would be to create a tiny
(20 MB) partition for the three boot files and a larger
partition for the rest of the drive.

Hans-Georg

 

[Jane Crystal]

Does that mean that when I'm done with my XP Pro Test install on Drive E
(10GB HDD), and I just disconnect drive E or reformat it, that I will have a
problem when next I try to reboot the system to get back into Windows Me on
Drive C?

Does it also mean that if I choose to keep XP Pro after reformatting and
removing Drive E as above, installing a larger Drive E (40GB, 80GB, or
120GB) that I will have a problem putting XP on the new Drive E? Assume that
XP was neither registered nor activated for the test install on the 10GB
Drive E.

What is a pagefile, and what do I need to know about one?

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

Does that mean that when I'm done with my XP Pro Test install on Drive E
(10GB HDD), and I just disconnect drive E or reformat it, that I will have a
problem when next I try to reboot the system to get back into Windows Me on
Drive C?

Does it also mean that if I choose to keep XP Pro after reformatting and
removing Drive E as above, installing a larger Drive E (40GB, 80GB, or
120GB) that I will have a problem putting XP on the new Drive E? Assume that
XP was neither registered nor activated for the test install on the 10GB
Drive E.

Jane,

I don't see any severe problems in either of your scenarios. If
you just remove drive E:, the Windows installation will still be
in the boot menu, but that poses no real problem, and you can
remove it from the menu later. The menu is actually stored in
the boot.ini file on C:, but can be edited through the graphical
user interface as well.

What is a pagefile, and what do I need to know about one?

Windows needs at least one to provide virtual memory. It is set
up and sized through My Computer, Properties, Advanced, virtual
memory settings.

If you delete it while running another Windows installation, it
will automatically be recreated, so no big deal.

To improve performance slightly, if you have more than one hard
disk, put the swapfile (= paging file) on the disk that is used
the least.

Hans-Georg

 

[C. Jon Hinkle]

For what it's worth: I gave up. It seems that the XP install I was dealing
with was an upgrade from 98. (or else it was schlepped from another
machine) When I re-formatted the 8 GB disk again and cloned the 4 gigger
back to it again, it tried to boot W98 and failed. I dumped the windows
directory from the 8 gb drive, left the 4 gb drive as the master, moved all
the other programs to the 8 gigger, and gave the machine back.

My first choice would have been a clean install on the 8 gb drive, but for
some reason (probably hardware related) XP refused to install. (p-II 266
with 128 MB ram)

 

[C. Jon Hinkle]

Thanks for the suggestions. I eventually gave up. See my other post.
I did, however, archive your information for the next time. (And I'm sure
there will be a next time...)
CJon

 

[Hans-Georg Michna]

For what it's worth: I gave up. It seems that the XP install I was dealing
with was an upgrade from 98. (or else it was schlepped from another
machine) When I re-formatted the 8 GB disk again and cloned the 4 gigger
back to it again, it tried to boot W98 and failed. I dumped the windows
directory from the 8 gb drive, left the 4 gb drive as the master, moved all
the other programs to the 8 gigger, and gave the machine back.

My first choice would have been a clean install on the 8 gb drive, but for
some reason (probably hardware related) XP refused to install. (p-II 266
with 128 MB ram)

Jon,

thanks for the report. Yes, some cases are difficult or
impossible to solve.

Hans-Georg