Transfer preinstalled OEM XP to new larger drive

[just show me the money!]

I bought my HP with XP Home OEM preinstalled.I was not supplied with
ANY discs for this system EVER and HP wont give/sell any to me.Dont you
just luv all this aftersales support!.NADA.The OS is on the hard drive
(30gb) in a FAT 32 partition, the rest is NTFS.I have bought a new hard
drive 60gb and would like to transfer XP from the original drive to the
new drive and dump the old one.I have read all the horror stories about
transferring the OS between drives (ghost,magic etc) and they really
dont seem to work.That plus the fact that this OS is OEM preinstalled
probably raises EULA issues etc as well.Please can someone point me in
the right direction?

 

[DL]

There should be no OEM issues, changing a hd.
Ghost, Acronis and even utilities supplied by hd manu can be used to clone
an o/s hd, Partition Magic does not clone.
An OEM supplier is obliged, by their license with MS, to give you some means
of recovering the sys. This may be by recovery disks or a hidden recovery
partition.
Is there some reason why you cannot install the new hd as slave?

 

[Larry Samuels]

HP has a utility on the hard drive for creating the recovery disks.
They will also supply disks for a fee in most cases.

--
Larry Samuels Associate Expert
MS-MVP (2001-2005)
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://pelos.us/SERVER.htm
Expert Zone-

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

HP and Compaq Desktop PCs - Obtaining a Recovery CD or DVD set
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...3&lang=en&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en&docname=bph07143

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| I bought my HP with XP Home OEM preinstalled.I was not supplied with
| ANY discs for this system EVER and HP wont give/sell any to me.Dont you
| just luv all this aftersales support!.NADA.The OS is on the hard drive
| (30gb) in a FAT 32 partition, the rest is NTFS.I have bought a new hard
| drive 60gb and would like to transfer XP from the original drive to the
| new drive and dump the old one.I have read all the horror stories about
| transferring the OS between drives (ghost,magic etc) and they really
| dont seem to work.That plus the fact that this OS is OEM preinstalled
| probably raises EULA issues etc as well.Please can someone point me in
| the right direction?

 

[Timothy Daniels]

I bought my HP with XP Home OEM preinstalled.I was not supplied with
ANY discs for this system EVER and HP wont give/sell any to me.Dont you
just luv all this aftersales support!.NADA.The OS is on the hard drive
(30gb) in a FAT 32 partition, the rest is NTFS.I have bought a new hard
drive 60gb and would like to transfer XP from the original drive to the
new drive and dump the old one.I have read all the horror stories about
transferring the OS between drives (ghost,magic etc) and they really
dont seem to work.That plus the fact that this OS is OEM preinstalled
probably raises EULA issues etc as well.Please can someone point me
in the right direction?

You don't say whether the computer is a laptop or a desktop.
If it's a desktop and there's room for a 2nd HD, it's trivial to make
a clone of any or all or the 1st HD's partitions. If you want to make
just a clone of one partition (say the OS's partition) instead of the
entire HD, you'll have to use a utility such as Ghost or Casper XP.
You can download a FREE 30-day trial copy of Casper XP from
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ . As with all WinXP/2K/NT
clones, don't let the new clone see its "parent" OS when the clone
is booted for the first time. You can do this by disconnecting the
old HD's data cable, allowing the new HD to both move to the head
of the HD boot order (and thus to boot) and to prevent the clone
from seeing its "parent" OS. Once the clone has booted, you may
shut down and reposition and re-jumper the HDs as you wish, and
the clone can see its "parent" without getting confused.

*TimDaniels*

 

[just show me the money!]

There should be no OEM issues, changing a hd.
Ghost, Acronis and even utilities supplied by hd manu can be used to clone
an o/s hd, Partition Magic does not clone.
An OEM supplier is obliged, by their license with MS, to give you some means
of recovering the sys. This may be by recovery disks or a hidden recovery
partition.
Is there some reason why you cannot install the new hd as slave?

I was told that 30 gb is not sufficient space for xp to run properly
and that I need to replace the 1st drive with at least 60gb.I will add
a slave later.
There is a "Recovery destuct or non destruct" but I want to transfer
the os not restore it.

 

[just show me the money!]

The recovery option is there and it works fine but it does not transfer
the os from one hard drive to another.I do not need the utility for
creating recovery disks as I do not want to recover the os, I want to
transfer it to the new larger drive.

 

[just show me the money!]

You don't say whether the computer is a laptop or a desktop.
If it's a desktop and there's room for a 2nd HD, it's trivial to make
a clone of any or all or the 1st HD's partitions. If you want to make
just a clone of one partition (say the OS's partition) instead of the
entire HD, you'll have to use a utility such as Ghost or Casper XP.
You can download a FREE 30-day trial copy of Casper XP from
www.FSSdev.com/products/casperxp/ . As with all WinXP/2K/NT
clones, don't let the new clone see its "parent" OS when the clone
is booted for the first time. You can do this by disconnecting the
old HD's data cable, allowing the new HD to both move to the head
of the HD boot order (and thus to boot) and to prevent the clone
from seeing its "parent" OS. Once the clone has booted, you may
shut down and reposition and re-jumper the HDs as you wish, and
the clone can see its "parent" without getting confused.

*TimDaniels*

Thankyou for the info.
Its a desktop,and yes theres room for a second hard drive as slave I
will do that later. I only want to transfer the XP os partition to the
new 60gb drive and dump the old one.
You say its FREE is it really free for one transfer?Are there any
restrictions on it? What will happen to my clone after 30 days?I am
never likely to do this again so I dont want any contractual
obligations etc.

 

[just show me the money!]

Carey.I do not want to restore my os I want to transfer it to the new
bigger better hard drive.I live in the UK and I have not been able to
get an OEM XP Home disc here.Do you sell them in the US? If so can I
buy one?
BTW out of interest I did follow your links( even though it was for
Restore Discs) and they are available in the US and Canada but not for
the UK.Your UK pages on that link refuse to load.Just thought you ought
to know.

 

[just show me the money!]

I could install the new drive as a slave but I have been told that 60gb
on the 1st drive would be better for xp to run, then later to add a
slave.Years ago I tried once to use the Western Digital transfer
utility for Win98 when I upgraded another old system from 1.2gb to
8.4gb (happy days!) and try as I might defragging and file checking
every item it would not transfer the os and work.
Luckily I found the original discs and just did a clean install.Worked
fine.

 

[Larry Samuels]

Bootit NG
www.terabyteunlimited.com

--
Larry Samuels Associate Expert
MS-MVP (2001-2005)
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://pelos.us/SERVER.htm
Expert Zone-

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Thankyou for the info.
Its a desktop,and yes theres room for a second hard drive as slave I
will do that later. I only want to transfer the XP os partition to the
new 60gb drive and dump the old one.
You say its FREE is it really free for one transfer?Are there any
restrictions on it? What will happen to my clone after 30 days?I am
never likely to do this again so I dont want any contractual
obligations etc.

The utility is free to use as many times as you want within a
30-day period. I tried using mine after 30 days, and it wouldn't
work. Neither could I install another downloaded copy. I assume
it makes some annotation in the registry. I didn't try resetting the
clock to make it think it's still in the 30-day period, though. I liked
the utility, so I just paid the $50 and got an activation code via email
in return. If you don't want to buy the utility, you can just uninstall it.
It has been pointed out to me that there is a feature of the utility
that isn't part of the trial copy, but it's such a minor feature that I
don't even recall what it is. For a one-time use, the utility is perfect.
But you may later realize that it can be used to make periodic
whole-disk backups that contain ALL your settings and ALL your
files that can be BOOTED just like the original, and $50 is cheap
insurance. (Of course, you'll need another HD to keep the clone(s)
on.)

Be aware that only Ghost, among the major cloning-capable
competing utilities, is able to clone single partitions and put the
clone among pre-existing partitions. But Ghost costs more and
it requires Microsoft's .NET Framework to be installed and it
requires at least one restart of the PC. The other major cloning-
capable utility is True Image, but True Image will only clone the
entirety of a HD and make that the entirety of another HD. In all
fairness, though, Ghost and True Image also make image files
and do incremental file backups to several other media, including
CDs, DVDs, and USB HDs. But for just cloning, Casper XP is
very effective and user-friendly.

*TimDaniels*

 

[just show me the money!]

The utility is free to use as many times as you want within a
30-day period. I tried using mine after 30 days, and it wouldn't
work. Neither could I install another downloaded copy. I assume
it makes some annotation in the registry. I didn't try resetting the
clock to make it think it's still in the 30-day period, though. I liked
the utility, so I just paid the $50 and got an activation code via email
in return. If you don't want to buy the utility, you can just uninstall it.
It has been pointed out to me that there is a feature of the utility
that isn't part of the trial copy, but it's such a minor feature that I
don't even recall what it is. For a one-time use, the utility is perfect.
But you may later realize that it can be used to make periodic
whole-disk backups that contain ALL your settings and ALL your
files that can be BOOTED just like the original, and $50 is cheap
insurance. (Of course, you'll need another HD to keep the clone(s)
on.)

Be aware that only Ghost, among the major cloning-capable
competing utilities, is able to clone single partitions and put the
clone among pre-existing partitions. But Ghost costs more and
it requires Microsoft's .NET Framework to be installed and it
requires at least one restart of the PC. The other major cloning-
capable utility is True Image, but True Image will only clone the
entirety of a HD and make that the entirety of another HD. In all
fairness, though, Ghost and True Image also make image files
and do incremental file backups to several other media, including
CDs, DVDs, and USB HDs. But for just cloning, Casper XP is
very effective and user-friendly.

*TimDaniels*

This sounds like the answer.But:
1.Am I right in saying that if I download it once and run it once to do
this one task then I will not have to buy it after 30 Days?
2.In that it will make an exact copy of the winxp os does that mean it
will be bootable as the new master and I can just change over the
drives/jumpers etc (dump the old one) and boot?
3.The os is in a FAT32 partition do I just point this program at it and
tell it where to copy it to and it will make the neccessary FAT32
partion and leave the rest as NTFS?
Sorry to go on so but I am not an expert and I know that theres often
alot more going on in theses situations than at first appears.

 

[just show me the money!]

This is interesting they have a program called Copy and Wipe and its
free.Has anyone used it? Did it transfer ALL the specified files? Did
your copy boot etc?

 

[Timothy Daniels]

This sounds like the answer.But:
1.Am I right in saying that if I download it once and run it once
to do this one task then I will not have to buy it after 30 Days?

That's right - you don't have to buy it. There is no obligation,
and it can be easily uninstalled like any other software.

2.In that it will make an exact copy of the winxp os does that
mean it will be bootable as the new master and I can just
change over the drives/jumpers etc (dump the old one) and
boot?

Yes. And if it will be the only HD in the system, you don't
even have to change the jumpers, although good practice
to prevent signal echoes coming back from the end of an
unterminated cable is to put any single HD at the end
connector of the cable. Other than to differentiate one HD
from the other on the same cable, jumpering just determines
the default HD boot order (which most modern BIOSes
allow you to change).

3.The os is in a FAT32 partition do I just point this program
at it and tell it where to copy it to and it will make the neccessary
FAT32 partion and leave the rest as NTFS?

The utility just carries over the format of the partition's file
system as part of the data in the partition. The following
webpages appear to indicate that partitions having differing
file systems can coexist on the same hard drive and be
located by the same partition table:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=94
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx

But I have never tried Casper XP in putting a partition of one
file format onto a HD containing pre-existing partitions of
another file format. If you don't want to experiment to find out,
you can email Future Systems Solutions at their "Contact Us"
page of their www.FSSdev.com website. They usually get
back with an intelligent reply within one working day.

*TimDaniels*

 

[DL]

Winxp will run fine on a 30gb disk, installing to a larger disk will have no
impact on winxp, unless you have insufficient free space. The Tech advice
you were given re hd size is crap

 

[just show me the money!]

That's right - you don't have to buy it. There is no obligation,
and it can be easily uninstalled like any other software.




Yes. And if it will be the only HD in the system, you don't
even have to change the jumpers, although good practice
to prevent signal echoes coming back from the end of an
unterminated cable is to put any single HD at the end
connector of the cable. Other than to differentiate one HD
from the other on the same cable, jumpering just determines
the default HD boot order (which most modern BIOSes
allow you to change).




The utility just carries over the format of the partition's file
system as part of the data in the partition. The following
webpages appear to indicate that partitions having differing
file systems can coexist on the same hard drive and be
located by the same partition table:
http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=94
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/learnmore/multiboot.mspx

But I have never tried Casper XP in putting a partition of one
file format onto a HD containing pre-existing partitions of
another file format. If you don't want to experiment to find out,
you can email Future Systems Solutions at their "Contact Us"
page of their www.FSSdev.com website. They usually get
back with an intelligent reply within one working day.

*TimDaniels*

Thank you,you have answered all the reservations I had about this
exercise.I have said elsewhere that I did try Westerns copy system some
time ago for Win98 exactly the same scenario except in those days
getting hold of the disc wasnt such a problem as all this preinstalled
oem stuff, anyway it failed miserably and I had to clean reinstall onto
the new drive then all was well.Perhaps thats why I am a little
cautious this time as this time I do not have any discs.
Email is on its way.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Thank you,you have answered all the reservations I had about this
exercise.I have said elsewhere that I did try Westerns copy system
some time ago for Win98 exactly the same scenario except in
those days getting hold of the disc wasnt such a problem as all
this preinstalled oem stuff, anyway it failed miserably and I had to
clean reinstall onto the new drive then all was well.Perhaps thats
why I am a little cautious this time as this time I do not have any
discs. Email is on its way.

I had a bad experience a couple years ago, too, with
cloning a hard drive using Maxtor's MaxBlast III utility. The
problem may have been that it wasn't suited for Windows XP,
or that the clone booted up before I could disconnect the
"parent" OS's hard drive. The only problem that I've had with
Casper XP is that if there are already 3 Primary partitions on
the destination HD, it makes an Extended partition to hold
the 4th and subsequent partitions if you just tell it to use
unallocated space. I'm told that the way around that is to
specifically make a 4th Primary partition and put the 4th
clone into that, but I haven't tried it because I can boot clones
that are in an Extended partition just fine. (The trick is to
use the correct rdisk() value in the boot.ini file.) For the
record, please tell us what Future Systems Solutions tells you
about putting a FAT32 partition onto a HD that already contains
NTFS partitions.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Larry Samuels]

I haven't tried Copy and Wipe. I simply boot from a BootIT NG floppy, tell
it not to install, then use the partition work to copy the partitions
between drives.

Based on the quality of the BING program I would tend to trust anything from
terabyte to do what they say it will do.

--
Larry Samuels Associate Expert
MS-MVP (2001-2005)
Unofficial FAQ for Windows Server 2003 at
http://pelos.us/SERVER.htm
Expert Zone-