mr. sock said:
I just bought a 80 gig hd to replace a rather full 40 gig hd. How do I
transfer all the files, operating system and settings. Can I just copy the
drive to the new drive? Thx in advance for your help, Jeff
If it's a system drive, simply copying *will not* give you a bootable drive.
Instead, clone it. Your new drive may have come with cloning software,
which should allow you to change the partition size on the fly.
If it didn't come with this or if it's not available on the manufacturer's
site, download the Acronis TrueImage trial (about 100 meg), install it, and
clone the drive in *manual* mode. Auto mode won't let you change the
partition size.
Before starting, you might want to clear out temporary files and browser
caches and empty the wastebasket - this will reduce the time needed to
clone.
When you're done, you can uninstall the TI trial version, or buy it; it's an
excellent backup tool and isn't very expensive.
HTH
-pk
