HD Swap!

[gplemos]

I have a windows 2000 pro machine. It has a 12 GIG HD. I want to replace it with a 20 GIG HD I have here.

What do you suggest is the best way to take everything from the existing HD and put it on the new HD so I can remove the old HD?

I was going to try to ghost it, but my version does not support w2000. I tried just doing a copy in windows explorer of everything from the C: drive to the new HD I installed temporarily as E: so I could just grab all the files. But some files are in use and it won't let me do a full copy over.

Maybe I'm missing something in this simple project. Any suggestions where I can just grab everything on the current drive put it on the new drive, then reinstall the new drive as C: and let the machine boot up as normal with the new HD?

Thanks!

[Bsdboy]

Did you try the software that came with your
drive?

Bsdboy

[gplemos]

There was no software, just a drive...

[Nighthawk]

Who made it? I know that Maxtor allows you to download the software that comes with the retail drives to use on your maxtor drive (it will actually check, so don't bother if it's not Maxtor).

These programs will generally do a straight copy, but I would make sure that it supports NTFS (and if you aren't running NTFS with W2K, you should be).

[AuraEdge]

Ghost will work from DOS (via the floppies it creates).
I know it works if you have FAT32, but if you have NTFS, you may need NTFS4DOS in addition to it (its a free download for read-only access).

[This message has been edited by AuraEdge (edited 04-24-2001).]

[BangorDude]

The easiest thing to do is to keep your old drive in the computer as a slave drive and copy the contents to your new drive with Windows Explorer. However, you must change the jumper settings on your drive to slave to do this.

[krusty the klown]

That's what I used to do with 9X/ME machines... slave the new drive up and drag&drop everything apart from the swap file (which is in use and can't be copied).

I then had to transfer the system files to make the new drive bootable (DOS prompt - SYS).

Not sure if the same approach works in W2000, though.

[gplemos]

Thats my problem. What do I do with the system files, and files that are in use?

I have the new drive in there as a slave now. When I tried just copying everything over it stopped on the files in use.

I have had a problem copying them over because they are in use.

How would you suggest I move that stuff over?

[Bsdboy]

If one of your drives are Western Digital
use Data Lifeguard Tools: http://www.wdc.com/service/ftp/drives.html
If one is Maxtor use Maxblast you can findit
here:http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm
IBM here: http://www.storage.ibm.com/techsup/hddtech/welcome.htm
Quantum utilities can be found at Maxtor's
site

Bsdboy

[gplemos]

let me look at this new drive...

ahh yes its a 20 gig fujitsu

[Bsdboy]

Here's the Maxtor link again: http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm
I didn't feel like editing my last post

Bsdboy

[Bsdboy]

Is one of your old drives one of the above?

Bsdboy

[BangorDude]

Can you boot your computer from a floppy and copy the files in DOS

[gplemos]

I can grab a dos bootdisk and try bootting right to dos.

What is the command for copying from the dos prompt? Grab everything on C: and put it on E:

[BangorDude]

Actually I don't think you have enough RAM to copy the whole drive at once.

You can copy individual files with the command copy c:\directory\file e:\directory

I believe there is a way to copy an entire directory but I'm not sure what the switch is. You can type copy /? to get a list of all the switches for the copy command.

[^hyd^]

Not sure how well it will work, or how long it would take, but xcopy should work. Try(from DOS):

xcopy c:\* e:\ /e /v /h /k /c

/e - copies all directories, even if empty
/v - verifies the files are written ok(i believe)
/h - copies hidden and system files
/k - copies file attributes
/c - will keep copying even if there are errors

Hope this helps...

[guitarsam]

I have been successful using Powerquest's DriveCopy software. Very simple to use and very efficient.

[Nick5373]

You just create a bootable disk then using DOS Ghost to dump the partition into the new HDD. Or you just dump as image to your new HDD then run Ghost from there and Dump image to the designated path. This should work because I done i before on WinNT using ghost 5.1D If this could not work Try to download NTFS4DOS This should work because Win2000 Use NTFS sys as a base foundation due to it's origin from Win NT.

[Nick5373]

You just create a bootable disk then using DOS Ghost to dump the partition into the new HDD. Or you just dump as image to your new HDD then run Ghost from there and Dump image to the designated path. This should work because I done i before on WinNT using ghost 5.1D in AMD Penang If this could not work Try to download NTFS4DOS This should work because Win2000 Use NTFS sys as a base foundation due to it's origin from Win NT.