New Hard Drive

[Tom M.]

I have an HP Pavilion desktop running xp home. I want to install a larger
hard drive. I do not have the xp disks because the computer came with the
recovery disks on a partition on the original hd. My question is-- can I
install the original software that came with the computer onto the new hd?
If so what would be the best way to do this? Can I install the new hd as a
slave and transfer the original software to that drive, then add my other
programs? I would like to start out with a fresh install, but if that is not
possible how do I transfer everything from the old hd to the new one?
Thanks!

Tom

 

[Leonard Grey]

It may be easier than all that. Retail hard drives come with complete
instructions and all the software you need to transfer everything from
your 'old' hard drive to your new hard drive. And the major disk
manufacturers offer assistance with making the transition. (It's in
their interest to do so.)

So I would check the website(s) of the disk manufacturer(s) under
consideration, and read the details in the support section.

You could, of course, invest in full-out disk imaging software, but I
would look at the manufacturer's supplied software first - the software
is typically a stripped down version of third party disk imaging
software anyway.

 

[JS]

Some HP model come with software to create a set of Recovery CD(s) using
your recovery partition:
See:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?lc=en&dlc=en&cc=au&docname=bph08097

Next I would use Image Backup software.
1) Mount the new drive as a "Slave"
2) Create two partitions, one will be your Boot/Windows partition
and the other partition will be used for storing Image backup files.
3) Trial Version of Acronis True Image 2009 - has a 15 day trial version
available,
(Trial version can create a Restore CD/Rescue Media, but I have not verified
this yet)
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
User's Guide: http://us1.download.acronis.com/pdf/TrueImage12_ug.en.pdf
4) Use Acronis trial version to create an Image Backup of your Windows
partition and store the image backup file on the second partition of the new
drive. The Image file will be about 40% smaller in size than the drive space
currently in use on your old drive.
So the second partition on your new drive must be large enough to hold at
least one Image backup file.
5) Use Acronis to create a "Rescue CD", see the Acronis User's guide of how
to do this.
6) Remove the old drive. This is important as you could accidentally erase
all the data if left connected.
7) Test the HP Recovery CD set you created on your new drive if you want a
"Clean Install".
(Don't forget to change the drive jumper to "Master")
7) See if the PC boots using the new drive.
If it does, this verifies that you have a valid set of "Recovery CDs".
8) If your PC did not come with software to create a set of recovery CDs.
then,
if you want to restore your PC, all the existing applications and data use
the
Acronis "Rescue CD" to restore the image backup you created to the first
partition on your new drive.

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Peter Foldes]

If it is(HD) an OEM that came with the computer from a store like your HP probably did then the Hardware that is in there now is locked to the computer and the OEM XP that is in there now. You can change the Hard Drive without any problems aside from re-installing the HP OEM XP that is in there presently. The HP Bios in your present machine will not recognize the new Hard Drive

Believe me I have tried this a numerous times over the years and the latter was always the case when trying to swap Hard Drives on an HP and Toshiba OEM machine.

What is possible and will work is if you add that new hard drive in there as a slave to the original installation or changing the Bios to another one that is not stamped OEM HP. Then you can add whatever you want as hardware