Will this hard drive upgrade work for Windows XP?

[Editor www.nutritionsoftware.org]

My current C drive is 80GB. I want to upgrade it to a 160GB drive.
Can I do a simple copy of everything on this drive to a 160GB drive THEN
replace the 80GB with the 160GB as drive C? Will Windows XP boot and
everything else works as before or do I have to reinstall Windows XP and
other software onto the new drive?

Thanks.

 

[Chris Lanier]

To make it easy on you purchase a program like Drive Copy. Although most
new drives come with a floppy with software to clone the drives. I would
still recomend getting Drive Copy.

 

[Steve C. Ray]

You can't make a simple copy. You will need to clone to the new drive, with
software that usually comes with the new drive, or a product such as
Partition Magic.

 

[Tod]

There are programs that "copy" from one drive to another.
Personally, I would do a new install of Win XP and programs on new
harddrive.
Then transfer over data.

 

[Guest]

I HAVE TRANSFERED MY HARD DRIVE SEVERAL TIMES USING XP
PRO. EVERY TIME IT GOES FROM 'FAT 32' TO 'NTSF'. MUST BE A
SECURITY DEAL BUILT INTO XP PRO. I USE 'SEAGATE HARD DRIVE
TRANSFER UTILITY'. I BELIEVE THAT IT IS FREE ON THE
SEAGATE SITE! DJ

-----Original Message-----
You can't make a simple copy. You will need to clone to the new drive, with
software that usually comes with the new drive, or a product such as
Partition Magic.

(e-mail address removed)> wrote in

 

[Rod Speed]

My current C drive is 80GB. I want to upgrade it to a 160GB drive.
Can I do a simple copy of everything on this drive to a 160GB drive
THEN replace the 80GB with the 160GB as drive C? Will Windows
XP boot and everything else works as before or do I have to
reinstall Windows XP and other software onto the new drive?

Depends on how you do the copy and what you
have done about support for drives over 137GB.

If you have ensured that the current system on the 80GB
drive does support drives over 137GB, by ensuring that
the motherboard supports them and that you have XP SP1
installed and 48bit LBA support enabled, you can certainly
use something like Drive Image or Ghost to do the copy
if you are careful to ensure that you do the clone from
the rescue floppys and make sure that the first boot
after the clone never sees both drives. Just make the
copy, physically disconnect the 80GB drive, connect
the 160GB drive as master on that cable, boot into
XP, have it tell you that you have added new
hardware and request a reboot. Let it reboot.

THEN you can connect the 80GB drive
again and do what you like cleaning it up etc.

 

[Lorne Smith]

Please don't use all caps... It's hard to read and considered as rude. All
Caps is used to indicate shouting...

XP will not format a partition larger than 32gb in FAT32, anything larger
and it will only do it in NTFS as this filesystem is far more efficient for
large drives. If you need a FAT32 partition larger than this, then either
use a DOS boot disk to partition and format it or use a 3rd party tool such
as Partition Magic.

Lorne

 

[Rod Speed]

Do you have to format and partition the
replacement hard drive before 'cloning'?

Depends on what you use to do the cloning. The bulk of
the apps do that for you, like ghost and drive image.

Obviously those that do a very simple clone by just
copying all the sectors from the source will copy
the directory and partition structures in the process.

Some cloners like xxcopy do it at the OS level and with those
you do need to partition and format the destination drive first.

 

[Roger Gelder]

Thanks Rod,
Just got Drive Image 7.0 so maybe alright for cloning
direct.
Cheers,
RoJ
===================================================
:
: :
: > Do you have to format and partition the
: > replacement hard drive before 'cloning'?
:
: Depends on what you use to do the cloning. The bulk of
: the apps do that for you, like ghost and drive image.
:
: Obviously those that do a very simple clone by just
: copying all the sectors from the source will copy
: the directory and partition structures in the process.
:
: Some cloners like xxcopy do it at the OS level and with those
: you do need to partition and format the destination drive first.
:
:
: > : > :
: > : in message : > :
: > : > My current C drive is 80GB. I want to upgrade it to a 160GB drive.
: > : > Can I do a simple copy of everything on this drive to a 160GB drive
: > : > THEN replace the 80GB with the 160GB as drive C? Will Windows
: > : > XP boot and everything else works as before or do I have to
: > : > reinstall Windows XP and other software onto the new drive?
: > :
: > : Depends on how you do the copy and what you
: > : have done about support for drives over 137GB.
: > :
: > : If you have ensured that the current system on the 80GB
: > : drive does support drives over 137GB, by ensuring that
: > : the motherboard supports them and that you have XP SP1
: > : installed and 48bit LBA support enabled, you can certainly
: > : use something like Drive Image or Ghost to do the copy
: > : if you are careful to ensure that you do the clone from
: > : the rescue floppys and make sure that the first boot
: > : after the clone never sees both drives. Just make the
: > : copy, physically disconnect the 80GB drive, connect
: > : the 160GB drive as master on that cable, boot into
: > : XP, have it tell you that you have added new
: > : hardware and request a reboot. Let it reboot.
: > :
: > : THEN you can connect the 80GB drive
: > : again and do what you like cleaning it up etc.
: > :
: > :
: >
:
:

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks Rod,

Just got Drive Image 7.0 so maybe alright for cloning direct.

Just make sure that you dont let XP see both the
original and the clone on the first boot after the clone.

Do the clone after booting the DI CD or after booting the
rescue floppys. Dont use the virtual boot or the clone from
within XP because then its a bit more tricky to ensure that
XP cant see both drives on the first boot after the clone.

Just physically disconnect the original drive for the first
boot after the clone. XP will report new hardware, the
new drive, and ask to reboot. Let it do that and after
that has completed, you can then plug the original back
in again, usually as a slave etc, and do whatever you
want formatting etc wise so it can be used for data etc.