Transferring files from one HD to another EXACTLY !

[Andy]

On my PC i have 2 Hard Drives, both have XP on them, one is a 160GB Hard
Drive (My main one) and the other is my Old 20GB Hard Drive (which used to
be the main one, but is now just a place to dump music/pictures etc !).

My 160GB Hard Drive has just went dodgy. Some things work, some don't. I
reformatted it and it got to 49% then wouldn't go any further. I ran a
ScanDisc and again it got to about 50% and just hung there for a few hours.
I now think there is something wrong with the actual Hard Drive (or the Hard
Disk inside it)

Anyway, to cut a long story short, i am now reverting back to the 20GB as my
main Hard Drive, I just spent a whole night putting things back on it (10GB
spare at the moment). I am going to buy another bigger Hard Drive and my
main question is:- Since my 20GB HD is fine, is there a way (or software) to
transfer the OS/Files etc from the 20GB to my new HD without having to
re-install WinXP, drivers, files etc onto the new one ??.

i.e. Basically put, can I make an EXACT clone of my 20GB HD onto my new HD
without having to go through the whole process of installing the OS (WinXP
Pro), files, drivers, settings, favourites etc etc ??


Cheers
Andy

 

[Chelsea]

Hi Andy
You can easily clone the contents of your 20GB drive onto the new one.
Symantec Ghost will do that, as will Acronis TrueImage. There are also
others but those are the market leaders. I prefer TrueImage, but there is
nothing wrong with Ghost either. TrueImage really requires only a small
amount of technical knowledge and can be used later as a backup program.
There was a free version of TrueImage called Personal edition on the cover
disk of Personal Computer World-in the last 6 months-sorry but that wont be
much help unless you are in UK

In respect of your old 160GB drive-are you sure you left it long enough to
format? Those big drives take forever when fully formated. I'd have left it
overnight.

Chelsea

 

[Brian A.]

On my PC i have 2 Hard Drives, both have XP on them, one is a 160GB Hard
Drive (My main one) and the other is my Old 20GB Hard Drive (which used to
be the main one, but is now just a place to dump music/pictures etc !).

My 160GB Hard Drive has just went dodgy. Some things work, some don't. I
reformatted it and it got to 49% then wouldn't go any further. I ran a
ScanDisc and again it got to about 50% and just hung there for a few hours.
I now think there is something wrong with the actual Hard Drive (or the Hard
Disk inside it)

Run a diagnostic check on the HD from the disk provided with the drive or
download it from the manufacturers support site.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, i am now reverting back to the 20GB as my
main Hard Drive, I just spent a whole night putting things back on it (10GB
spare at the moment). I am going to buy another bigger Hard Drive and my
main question is:- Since my 20GB HD is fine, is there a way (or software) to
transfer the OS/Files etc from the 20GB to my new HD without having to
re-install WinXP, drivers, files etc onto the new one ??.

i.e. Basically put, can I make an EXACT clone of my 20GB HD onto my new HD
without having to go through the whole process of installing the OS (WinXP
Pro), files, drivers, settings, favourites etc etc ??

To get an exact copy/clone you will have to first create an image of the drive
using a third party backup imaging/cloning app which would then be used to clone
the image onto the new HD.


--

Brian A. Sesko
{ MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

 

[Al Romanosky]

Prior advice answers your question, however one comment here - with two HDs
installed the transfer speed is at the rate provided by the "slowest"
drive - in other others using an older drive with lower specs than the new
drive forces the new drive to operate at the lower specs.

 

[Andy]

Yeah, i left it for about 3 hours !! - After about half an hour it stuck at
49% and stayed that way for another 2 to 3 hours !!

Cheers
Andy

 

[Richard Urban]

That, at one time, was true. Not any longer with the newer M/B's and
chipsets.


--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Kerry Brown]

Prior advice answers your question, however one comment here - with two
HDs installed the transfer speed is at the rate provided by the "slowest"
drive - in other others using an older drive with lower specs than the new
drive forces the new drive to operate at the lower specs.

That depends on the chipset and the driver. Most newer chipsets with the
right driver will use the fastest transfer speed for each drive regardless
of how they are hooked up.

Kerry

 

[Anna]

On my PC i have 2 Hard Drives, both have XP on them, one is a 160GB Hard
Drive (My main one) and the other is my Old 20GB Hard Drive (which used to
be the main one, but is now just a place to dump music/pictures etc !).

My 160GB Hard Drive has just went dodgy. Some things work, some don't. I
reformatted it and it got to 49% then wouldn't go any further. I ran a
ScanDisc and again it got to about 50% and just hung there for a few
hours.
I now think there is something wrong with the actual Hard Drive (or the
Hard
Disk inside it)

Anyway, to cut a long story short, i am now reverting back to the 20GB as
my
main Hard Drive, I just spent a whole night putting things back on it
(10GB
spare at the moment). I am going to buy another bigger Hard Drive and my
main question is:- Since my 20GB HD is fine, is there a way (or software)
to
transfer the OS/Files etc from the 20GB to my new HD without having to
re-install WinXP, drivers, files etc onto the new one ??.

i.e. Basically put, can I make an EXACT clone of my 20GB HD onto my new HD
without having to go through the whole process of installing the OS (WinXP
Pro), files, drivers, settings, favourites etc etc ??


Cheers
Andy

Andy:
You've already received responses to your query indicating that the most
practical way to achieve your objective is to use a disk imaging program
(Ghost & Acronis True Image were mentioned -- they're both fine products) to
clone the contents of your 20 GB drive to your new drive. I just wanted to
add that should you purchase a retail boxed version of the HD, it will come
with a utility that allows you to clone the old drive to the new one. Should
you purchase an OEM version of the HD which normally does not come with this
type of utility, it's usually available from the manufacturer's website at
no cost. While this utility will do the job for you, its relatively slow
cloning speed as compared with the previous products mentioned make it an
impractical program for routine cloning of drives for backup purposes should
you be thinking of using the utility for that operation. In that instance,
you would be best served by purchasing a disk imaging program such as the
ones mentioned.

As far as your present "dodgy" (does that mean erratic?) HD, you really
should download the manufacturer's diagnostic program to test the drive.
Your problem in trying to format that disk does not, in itself, indicate a
defective disk, although it might well be. The formatting problem could have
a multitude of other causes. I assume you've been trying to format the disk
using XP's disk management utility. Unless you've already tried this, you
might want to first delete the partition(s) on that drive and then try
formatting it. If that doesn't work, as a test, try formatting it with a DOS
bootable floppy, e.g., a Win9x/Me startup disk, and see if that "takes".
Anna

 

[Andy]

Thanks Anna. Advice much appreciated !

Kind Regards
Andrew

 

[Chelsea]

Anna is right Andy, don't give up on your hard disk too soon One last
thought, look in your system bios and see if something described as
S.M.A.R.T is enabled. That is hardware level code that will talk to the IDE
controller on your hard disk. The idea is for the sensors in the hard disk
to tell the system via SMART that the disk is about to fail or is faulty-if
that is the case SMART warns the user on startup and this gives the user
time to save data and maybe backup. Almost all hard disks made in the last
2-3 years use SMART. If SMART is on and there is no error and if you still
want to persevere with that drive try finding a copy of Partition
Magic-there are trials around. Partition Magic formats a hard disk thousands
of times faster than Windows. I have no idea how it does this, it just does.
Good luck

Chelsea

 

[Andy]

Cheers for that !. Yes i have now tried other ways, but have definitely come
to the conclusion the Hard Drive IS faulty !. It always stops at 49% whether
i'm reformatting, Scan disking etc. I have even plugged it in as a USB HD
and tried Scandisk from there, again it sticks at 49% !!!!

Cheers
Andy

 

[Richard Urban]

Andy,

Now that you have, more or less, concluded that the drive is bad - and that
you will lose everything on it - there is one thing left to try. You said
you re-formatted the drive and the format fails.

Delete all partitions off of the drive. Make it just as it was when the
drive was new - empty. This will clear out the MBR and partitions tables.
Now create a new partition and try one last time to format the NEW partition
as NTFS. I have seen this work.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"

 

[Andy]

How would i go about that (being a 'novice to imtermediate' !). Could i just
open it up within my good drive and delete everything off it, then try
reformatting it ? (if so, then i have already tried that). When i
reformatted it, winXP asked me if i wanted to delete any partitions from it
and i said yes, but still no luck when i went on to format it ??

Cheers
Andy

 

[Andy]

See, thing is (if i understand what you are saying right), i'm not sure at
what point the disk inside the HD is faulty at. Do i assume that with the
error being at about 49% everytime that it must mean the error is at around
80Gb on the HD ? (HD is 160Gb total). In which case is it worth trying to
partition the HD into 70Gb or so (if you can see my line of thought here !).
Or does it indeed work like that ?

Cheers
Andy

 

[Andy]

Tried using Partition magic 8. Tried to make a new partition, got the
error:-

"Operation (1 of 1)
Formatting partition: D:
(BADMBR, Primary volume, 152625.3 MB on Disk:6)
New label and type: D (NTFS)"

Does this mean the HD is cooked ???!!!! (tried everything i know now, is it
time to give up on it ??)

Cheers'Andy

 

[Richard Urban [MVP]]

If you deleted the old partition first, and then tried to create a new
partition - then yes, I would say that the drive is toast. See if it's still
under warranty?

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"

 

[Andy]

I think it's still under warranty, however there are all my work files on
there and they're confidential, also bank details / passwords, i don't think
i'd want to do that !. having said that, i think with the initial
re-formatting (albeit only got to 49% !) they may have gone anyway ?? I
don't know ! I have backed up all the work files onto a USB HD (luckily !!)

Cheers anyway !

Andy