copying a system hard disk

[farmcos]

Ok, I'm sure this was discussed a million times, but I can't seem to find a way:

I want to copy my Primary Master HDD on to a much larger HDD, but I DO NOT WANT to partition the big one. In other words, Norton Ghost clonong (direct or via image) will not help.

All I seem to find are apps that work in DOS but don't support longfilenames, or those that work in Windows, but won't copy files in use.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Costas

[Variable]

you should partition the new HD the way you want it to be. then make the primary partition on it bootable and add those boot-files. then set up your old hd as secondary hd. make it active like before copy all files from on hd to the other in win. make the new hd active. maybe run disk defrag. voila!

[-=BP!=-Joker]

The newest version of Ghost will expand the image across the whole drive. Which means that you can ghost a 4 gig to a 20 gig if you want. I think that it is 6.2.1. We have one ghost for all of our laptops. (same model only newer..different hard drives.)

[Nathan]

I take it that version of Ghost works off of a couple of boot floppies, correct?

[Comtech]

You CAN do this from within Windows.
Here's how: http://www.pcmech.com/article.htm?more

[Orly]

I've done it several times for my machines and friends' machines using XCOPY within Windows (versions 95 through Me). Once I had to it 3 times on one system but it worked in the end. Here's how:

1. Format (make it bootable /s) and partition the new drive but don't make the primary partition active (you'll do this at the end) HINT: Call the drive volume names New_C and if you added more new partitions New_D, etc. This will help to keep track of the drives.

2. Boot with the old drive and disable any startup stuff like anti-virus.

3. Disable Virtual Memory under control panel/performance. Don't reboot just shut down the system.

4. Attach the new drive as a slave to the old drive. Don't forget to make updates to BIOS. If you old drive has more than one partition (C,D,etc), the new drive's main partition will become drive D. (Remember the hint in step 1--it can become confusing. I took notes as I was doing. I did DIR from the start menu to see where the drive are). If the old drive has more partition they'll fall in after D (new drive's main partition.

5. At the start/run type in: XCOPY C:\*.* /E/H/K/R/C D:

This will copy all files, directories, and with long filenames.

6. Once it done copying, shut down the system.

7. Remove the old drive and install the new drive as the master. Boot up and update BIOS. You may need a boot floppy with the MSDOS command SYS on it (I need just once but I was ready). If the new drive doesn't boot, then boot to the bootable floppy and at the dos prompt type sys c:

8. Remember to enable your virtual memory and any startup programs like anti-virus.

It works like a champ but be careful at every step. You still have your old drive which you can reformat once you boot up with the new drive. I hope you can understand this cuz I'm writing as I'm ready to go off to my Visual Basic class and take a final.

Orly

[Axel]

why?

you don't want to partition the larger drive - why not? maybe we can turn you on to an easy tool -

One large partition is stable in some ways because if there isn't a partition table to corrupt - one less thing to go wrong -

Do you have too much pirated software you no longer have copies of? Are you in dire need of space and don't know what to erase/uninstall?

Why are you doing this? All you will succeed in doing is to move over and make worse any problems you are currently having on the old drive -

So - as detailed as you can - tell us what your goal is and tell us the tech specs on the old and the new drive -

What you gave us so far is that you want to move everything from an old small drive to a new large drive and you don't want to partition the new one - something I think is a mistake as a really large new drive should be partitioned for good system health and user sanity.....

just because it's possible doesn't mean it's a good idea -

[elroy]

Everyone must have a copy of Maxtor's Maxblast software. Under the advanced options it has a partition copy feature. Just boot the pc with the maxblast floppy go to the advanced section and select source and target drive. If you don't have this you can probably d/l it from maxtor. It will copy a 4 gb part. to a 20gb, no problem.

[turbo]

I used Ghost on my net erver at home last night From 3 to 10 Gig it worked.

And on a clients computer this morning and it worked from 3.4 to 20 Gig.

It is wise once ghosted to then re install the opperating system on the new drive. This covers mis information in the FAT etc.

Turbo :-]

[farmcos]

Axel

The reason I don't want to partition is that I have 3 HDs installed. When you spend years working with C, D, E and you know exactly what's where, it's difficult to change.

Second, I am one of the few people I know (here in Greece at least) who actually have the original installation cd's and licenses for most of their crucial software. So pirated software is not the reason.

I just want to put in a faster and bigger HD (I'm not talking dozens of GB's but mere 10GB) as my primary drive. I don't have any problems with the old one, I've just outgrown it.

I think I have a few good solutions from this page and I'll give them a shot.

Many thanks all