Time to buy a bigger hard drive

[Carl]

The inevitable time has come to buy a new, bigger and better hard drive
because Windows XP has outgrown the 13 GB partition it is currently
installed on - which to be honest doesn't surprise me too much!

I have two hard drives, a 20 GB one which I partitioned into C (~5 GB) and D
(~13 GB) and E, a 40 GB one which is more of a giant 'My Documents' than
anything else. Windows ME lives happily enough on C but Windows XP has
recently begun running incredibly sluggish, freezing for minutes on end and
ultimately programs have begun crashing. Given there is still a whole GB of
space left and that it has run fine with that amount before I don't
understand the sudden slowness but I'm not going to argue with the reality
of the situation.

So I plan to purchase a 120 GB hard drive shortly and ideally I'd like to
just copy the entire contents of my primary hard drive onto it. I'm aware of
Partition Magic and Norton Ghost however I'm wondering if a) Both OSs will
work if I do this (given the only system change will be a different HD)? and
b) If I'll then be able to easily resize both partitions to take advantage
of the huge amount of space. More importantly I'm wondering exactly how to
do this... assuming it's not some incredibly straightforward option in
PM/Ghost.

Any advice anyone can offer on my endeavour would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Carl

 

[t.cruise]

The MOST important point: I wouldn't recommend Ghosting your Windows XP to
a new hard drive, if it's sluggish, hanging, and crashing. If you have
installation CDs, it would be the perfect time to do a clean install on the
new hard drive. You could partition the new drive and install Windows ME on
the C partition (although I don't know why anyone would want Windows ME)
and then install Windows XP. Personally if I were you, I'd rethink why you
want a dual boot with Windows ME.

 

[Guest]

Ever thought about doing a clean install of XP on the new
hard drive? You'll have to resintall all of your other
programs and you make sure you have the product ID's for
them if they have one. Plus have all of you other files
backed up on CD like any Word files, music files, I.E.
favorites ect. If you have your CD set as teh first boot
device you can boot to the Windows XP and then just
follow the instructions. You'll also need your Windows
ME CD and maybe product ID. It will asak you for that if
your XP CD is the upgrade and not the full version. The
full version of XP doesn't need a previous version of
Windows. You can do a search in the Windows Newsgroup
for clean install of XP I think someone in here has a set
by step guide.

 

[Carl]

Hi there,

I understand your scepticism about why I have a dual boot with Windows ME
but owing to problems with XP suddenly refusing to boot in the past I now
always keep a reserve OS so that the hard drive is still accessible for
back-up purposes etc. In fact you'd be surprised to learn that given how
rarely I use ME and that I haven't installed too much it is incredibly
stable and reliable! Right now it's great using Windows ME!

The reason I'm reluctant to perform a clean install of XP is because of the
whole host of programs, files and everything else that I use in Windows XP.
The amount of time it would require to back-up everything and then
re-install it just isn't practical right now.

As I know the cause of the problem to definitely be the lack of hard drive
space and while I don't have the time to do a clean install it sounds like
using something like Partition Magic is my most suitable option. I
appreciate that copying a slow and even unstable operating system might seem
mad but it's the price I'm prepared to live with until I can format in
summer.

The information I'm specifically looking for is if anything is likely to go
wrong if I just copy a partition directly from one HD to another and the
precise procedure to go about the copying/transfer. Obviously I know to copy
Windows ME first but I'm referring to the best method (if there is one) and
anything I should remember to do that isn't obvious.

Thanks for your input.

Regards,

Carl

The MOST important point: I wouldn't recommend Ghosting your Windows XP to
a new hard drive, if it's sluggish, hanging, and crashing. If you have
installation CDs, it would be the perfect time to do a clean install on the
new hard drive. You could partition the new drive and install Windows ME on
the C partition (although I don't know why anyone would want Windows ME)
and then install Windows XP. Personally if I were you, I'd rethink why you
want a dual boot with Windows ME.
--

T.C.
t__cruise@[NoSpam]hotmail.com
Remove [NoSpam] to reply

The inevitable time has come to buy a new, bigger and better hard drive
because Windows XP has outgrown the 13 GB partition it is currently
installed on - which to be honest doesn't surprise me too much!

I have two hard drives, a 20 GB one which I partitioned into C (~5 GB)

and

D
(~13 GB) and E, a 40 GB one which is more of a giant 'My Documents' than
anything else. Windows ME lives happily enough on C but Windows XP has
recently begun running incredibly sluggish, freezing for minutes on end and
ultimately programs have begun crashing. Given there is still a whole GB of
space left and that it has run fine with that amount before I don't
understand the sudden slowness but I'm not going to argue with the reality
of the situation.

So I plan to purchase a 120 GB hard drive shortly and ideally I'd like to
just copy the entire contents of my primary hard drive onto it. I'm

aware

of
Partition Magic and Norton Ghost however I'm wondering if a) Both OSs will
work if I do this (given the only system change will be a different HD)? and
b) If I'll then be able to easily resize both partitions to take advantage
of the huge amount of space. More importantly I'm wondering exactly how to
do this... assuming it's not some incredibly straightforward option in
PM/Ghost.

Any advice anyone can offer on my endeavour would be much appreciated!

Regards,

Carl

 

[t.cruise]

One of the good things about Windows XP is that if you can't boot into
Normal Mode, there's Safe Mode for fixing problems or accessing files, the
repair console, or doing a repair install, which keeps all of your data
files and software but repairs the OS. If you're unable to use any of the
above, then chances are your hard drive is trashed, or it's another hardware
problem. You'd be better off with a clean install of Windows XP, and then
slaving one of your other drives to back up your data files. I can
understand your reluctance to do a clean install because of the time it will
take to reinstall all of your software. BUT, if your installed version of
Windows XP crashes, hangs, is slow, and you haven't been able to find fixes,
you'll just be putting those same problems on a new drive. Sic transit
gloria mundi...
--

T.C.
t__cruise@[NoSpam]hotmail.com
Remove [NoSpam] to reply

Hi there,

I understand your scepticism about why I have a dual boot with Windows ME
but owing to problems with XP suddenly refusing to boot in the past I now
always keep a reserve OS so that the hard drive is still accessible for
back-up purposes etc. In fact you'd be surprised to learn that given how
rarely I use ME and that I haven't installed too much it is incredibly
stable and reliable! Right now it's great using Windows ME!

The reason I'm reluctant to perform a clean install of XP is because of the
whole host of programs, files and everything else that I use in Windows XP.
The amount of time it would require to back-up everything and then
re-install it just isn't practical right now.

As I know the cause of the problem to definitely be the lack of hard drive
space and while I don't have the time to do a clean install it sounds like
using something like Partition Magic is my most suitable option. I
appreciate that copying a slow and even unstable operating system might seem
mad but it's the price I'm prepared to live with until I can format in
summer.

The information I'm specifically looking for is if anything is likely to go
wrong if I just copy a partition directly from one HD to another and the
precise procedure to go about the copying/transfer. Obviously I know to copy
Windows ME first but I'm referring to the best method (if there is one) and
anything I should remember to do that isn't obvious.

Thanks for your input.

Regards,

Carl

The MOST important point: I wouldn't recommend Ghosting your Windows XP to
a new hard drive, if it's sluggish, hanging, and crashing. If you have
installation CDs, it would be the perfect time to do a clean install on the
new hard drive. You could partition the new drive and install Windows

ME

on
the C partition (although I don't know why anyone would want Windows ME)
and then install Windows XP. Personally if I were you, I'd rethink why you
want a dual boot with Windows ME.
--

T.C.
t__cruise@[NoSpam]hotmail.com
Remove [NoSpam] to reply

The inevitable time has come to buy a new, bigger and better hard drive
because Windows XP has outgrown the 13 GB partition it is currently
installed on - which to be honest doesn't surprise me too much!

I have two hard drives, a 20 GB one which I partitioned into C (~5 GB)

and

D
(~13 GB) and E, a 40 GB one which is more of a giant 'My Documents' than
anything else. Windows ME lives happily enough on C but Windows XP has
recently begun running incredibly sluggish, freezing for minutes on

end
and

ultimately programs have begun crashing. Given there is still a whole

GB
of

space left and that it has run fine with that amount before I don't
understand the sudden slowness but I'm not going to argue with the reality
of the situation.

So I plan to purchase a 120 GB hard drive shortly and ideally I'd like to
just copy the entire contents of my primary hard drive onto it. I'm

aware

of
Partition Magic and Norton Ghost however I'm wondering if a) Both OSs will
work if I do this (given the only system change will be a different

HD)?
and

b) If I'll then be able to easily resize both partitions to take advantage
of the huge amount of space. More importantly I'm wondering exactly

how

to

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

While it may well be time to move to a new hard drive, you might want to try
sourcing some of the problems before making the move as opposed to an
assumption it's the amount of space on the drive. That might well be the
case but it would be prudent for you to do some investigation before making
such a move. If there are other causes of the problems you are having, they
might cause problems with the installation of the new hard drive or simply
carry over. You really should try to do some additional investigation
rather than relying on an assumption in order to help ensure the possibility
of a more stable setup after you've invested in the larger drive.

First, be sure your antivirus software has the latest definitions and run a
virus scan.

Second, download, install and run Ad Aware:
www.lavasoftusa.com

If your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, open System, go to
the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, remove the
check from "Automatically Restart" under System Failure. This will cause
the system to blue screen instead of restarting on errors and the
information on the blue screen may give a clue as to the source of the
issue.

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer, look for
errors corresponding to the crash, double click the error, the information
contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem. If you don't understand the information inside, the
third button down in that dialog box will copy the information,
you can then paste it into a message and post it here and maybe we can
figure out what is going on.

Assuming you have an XP CD and not a recovery CD, place the XP CD in the
drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check System Compatibility,"
the report it generates may point to problem hardware or software on your
system. If you do not have an XP CD, you can download this application
known as the Upgrade Advisor from the following site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp
Note: If you have access to a broadband connection it might be best to
download using that as this is a rather large download.

Check for the latest drivers for your hardware, especially your graphics
card and soundcard and all peripherals connected to your system. Do not use
Windows Update for this, go to the device manufacturer's web sites and if
you install updated drivers, ignore the message about drivers being unsigned
by Microsoft. *Before installing any drivers, be sure you are well backed
up and it's probably a good idea to manually create a restore point in
System Restore in case you have problems as a result of the driver update
and note, System Restore is not a substitute for a backup. Start\All
Programs\Accessories\System Tools\System Restore

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Carl.

Since you are dual-booting WinME, you must be using FAT32, at least on your
Drive C: and probably on D:, too. If you want to format your new drive as
FAT32 all the way, then your job should be fairly easy. Microsoft won't let
WinXP format a volume larger than 32 GB as FAT32, but Win98/ME can handle
one up to about 127 GB. After formatting, WinXP will happily use the whole
thing. So, you can follow these steps:

1. Add your new HD as a secondary. Boot into your old WinXP and use Disk
Management to create the partitions you want on it. Make sure the first
partition is a primary partition (not an extended partition). Then boot
from a Win9x/ME boot floppy and use Format.exe to format the volumes as
FAT32. (If you prefer, you can use FDISK from the MS-DOS floppy to create
the partitions, rather than Disk Management.)

2. Then, while still booted to MS-DOS, use Xcopy.exe to copy everything
from your old drives C: and D: to your new volumes - which can temporarily
use any drive letters, since they will be changed before you actually use
the volumes. Since neither WinME nor WinXP will be running at the time, ALL
files, including the Registries, should be copied. Use the proper switches
with Xcopy to be sure you get all the files (including system, hidden and
read-only files - and including the Registry files):
xcopy c:\ x:\ /c /h /e /r /k

(This won't work from MS-DOS for NTFS volumes, but it should work fine for
FAT32. As with any DOS command, type xcopy /? to see a mini-help file
listing all the switches available with the command.)

3. Remove your old HDs, install the new HD as primary master. Boot from
the WinXP CD-ROM and have it Repair the WinXP startup files. You don't have
to actually re-install WinXP, since all the files have been copied. But,
the boot sector is not a file, and Xcopy can't handle it. The Repair should
take care of the boot sector, plus recreate C:\ntldr, C:\ntdetect.com and
C:\boot.ini.

4. Boot into WinXP on your new HD. When you are sure it is running right,
shut down, add your old main drive, if you like, and use Disk Management to
reconfigure all your volumes for future use to suit yourself.

5. Someday, when you are ready to retire WinME, you can use the Convert
utility to convert your FAT32 volumes to NTFS.

One thing to watch out for: The natural impulse is to plug in that new
drive as the primary master and the old drive as secondary or slave and then
install WinXP onto the new drive. Trouble with this is that WinXP Setup
will spot the existing system files on the old HD, conclude that the old C:
is still C:, and assign the first partition on your new drive the next
available letter, which will probably be something like F: or G:, following
your CD/DVD drives. If you read this NG very much, you'll find plenty of
fairly sophisticated geeks who have been caught in this trap! And the only
cure is to start over. Be sure that you don't plug in your old HD until
WinXP is up and running on your NEW C:!

Let us know how this works out for you, Carl. In a newsgroup, we all learn
from each other, and there are many who might learn from your experience.

RC

 

[Alex Nichol]

I have two hard drives, a 20 GB one which I partitioned into C (~5 GB) and D
(~13 GB) and E, a 40 GB one which is more of a giant 'My Documents' than
anything else. Windows ME lives happily enough on C but Windows XP has
recently begun running incredibly sluggish, freezing for minutes on end and
ultimately programs have begun crashing. Given there is still a whole GB of
space left and that it has run fine with that amount before I don't
understand the sudden slowness but I'm not going to argue with the reality
of the situation.

So I plan to purchase a 120 GB hard drive shortly and ideally I'd like to
just copy the entire contents of my primary hard drive onto it. I'm aware of
Partition Magic and Norton Ghost however I'm wondering if a) Both OSs will
work if I do this (given the only system change will be a different HD)?

For this I would use BootIT NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35
shareware - 30 day full functional trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

With the new drive plugged in as slave/secondary, boot the floppy,
Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on Partition work.
Highlight your C:,Copy, then on left select the new drive (HD1),
highlight the Free Space in it, and Paste.

You might then consider a resize up a bit. Provided C is adequate for
its present use, I would keep it under 8GB; this is more efficient for
FAT 32 and avoids *possible* troubles with BIOSes trying to boot from a
partition that is after that point. Then copy your D one and resize -
similarly.

The important thing is to ensure that the partitions are in the same
'slots' of the partition table on the new drive as they were in the old:
highlighting each drive and using View MBR will allow you to check the
point and to adjust entries up or down in the new one should it be
necessary.

Now with the HD1 selected, click on `View MBR` and in it highlight the
entry for this new C partition and click the `Set Active` Click `Write
Standard MBR` and Apply.

Close out, swap the disks to make the new one the one that boots, and
the new drive should be usable. And you have made no changes to the old,
so could revert to it *should* there be trouble