Upgrading a Hard Drive

[Zacko10000]

Heres my question, what's the best way to make a mirror image of a hard drive. I just bought a new one as an upgrade and would like to know how I can copy the contents of the old one to the new hard disk (the old disk is slower, and smaller I will reformat in and put it in another box). I know I could reinstall everything, but in this situation this is not really a favorable option. Would it work if I just put in the new drive as the slave, and just physically selected everything on the old drive, copied it to the new drive (Windows and all), and then took out the old drive, making the new drive the master? Or is there software out there that does a better job? If so, know of any freeware or shareware (I don't really want to spend $40 on a program I will only use once)?
Thanks a lot

[BBA]

Yes, I do that often for Win9x. NT is a little more tricky as you have to use therepair function of the cd to create the disk boot areas. I have done a few articles on the subject. Look at this:EZ OS Restore (http://www.hostclub.net/reviews/ezwinrestore.html)

And look in the part about using Win Explorer to copy the windows directory.

/forum/smile.gif

BBA

[BBA]

Oh, something I didn't mention....

You have to run FDISK on the new drive to set it up.

To use fat32, say yes to the first question to treat the drive as a large drive.

The new drive should be the only drive physically connected to the PC when it is fdisk'd or it will not get marked as "ACTIVE" and will therefore not be bootable.


BBA

[Ed_S]

I know you said you didn't want to buy a program, but I'll suggest this one anyway because I've had such good luck with it.

Quarteredeck's DiskClone program is excellent. Single floppy program, no HD installation required. Also no Fdisk or format required before using. Just install the drive in any free IDE port, then boot using DiskClone boot disk. Program will start, follow the prompts. That's it. Almost too easy.

Got this when someone needed drive copied, but old drive was full to the crash point & he wouldn't delete anything. Could not use any util which had to be installed, didn't even have enough room for swap file to work properly. Programm worked flawlessly. Have used many times since with no problems. /forum/smile.gif

[KillerBug]

Better idea, so it actualy boots...

Install Windows 9X on the new drive, with the old driv enot in the case, set the new one as a slave and put the old one back in. Then copy all the files over.

[Susan]

Hey, Ed_S, what version do you have?

I've got version 1.0 but the only problem with it is that it doesn't support disk size over 8.4G. Other than that, it's a great little disk and I've used mine a few times.

[chuckiechan]

What brand of HD is it? I just did an IBM and got a "filecopy" utility with the setup info that I downloaded. I had no luck finding any freeware/demo for copying.

Try the website of the mfg & you might find one too.

Good luck..

[Ed_S]

Susan, I've got 1.0 also. Haven't yet used with drive over 8.4, wasn't aware it wouldn't work, thanks!

I would hope this has been fixed in current release, but anyone buying should definately check!!

[krusty]

You can Fdisk/Formatt the drive normally & make it bootable. Then Copy/Paste using windows. I have used this method several time without problems.

K.

[Underclocked]

If the new drive is a Western Digital retail unit (probably other retail drives as well) it comes with a disk of WD utilities. You can use the WD program to copy an exact image of the old drive to the new (I've done this exactly once, but it worked perfectly).

[Susan]

I'm betting there won't be a further upgrade to DiskClone because of Symantec's buyout of Quarterdeck.

I went to the site and found no mention of any newer version.