HardDrive Image

[tw1112]

Hi, I was wondering what do I do if I am getting a new hard drive, but want to keep all my old stuff.

I have 2 Western Digital 20.5GB 7200 hard drives right now, and I am going to get a Seagate X15 18GB SCSI drive and a IBM Deskstar 75GXP 75GB Hard Drive. I want to put all my OS and programs on the Seagate, or should I keep the Seagate just for the OS? Anyhow, i wanted to know how I would trnasfer all the information of the 2 Western Digital's onto the new drives? Is it possible or should i just go and do a full clean install?? I have a lot of things that I would like to keep though...Can anyone help? Thanks!

[BBA]

You can use either PM drive image or ghost to mave the data over.

Really, you should only have one of the drive image applications to move the OS over to the new drive, then use explorer to move the rest of the drives contents around.

I would load the OSon a small partition ( around 8 Gigs ) on one of the fastest drives, like the SCSI one.

[This message has been edited by BBA (edited 09-04-2000).]

[drojman]

8 gigs seems like a very large partition just for the os, but I haven't really ever separated them before... what is the theory behind this?

[tw1112]

Thanks for the replys....to answer your question on why you would seperate, The main reason why I do it, and it probably differs from person to person, is that I have a lot of things on my computer. If I put everything onto one drive with no partitions, it takes some time to access some things in the OS system files, programs write there and always need certain things from those files, it just seems like its quicker if I seperate. Also, if my hard drive crashes, I would hope that it wouldn't be the one with the OS. Sorry if this doesn't help.

[BBA]

If it is bigger than 8G, you fall into the 'iffy' region outside of "int13h" addressable range. Usually it is not a problem, but the boot files must be recognizeable in the first 8 gigs or the PC may not boot correctly. Of course this is depending on whether or not the bios/ drive controller uses the 'int13h' compatible standard.

What happens is after about xxx number of defrags and copy/delete operations, files can moved outside of the region addressable in the 'int13h' region of the drive and boot problems can occur.

It's very common to have boot issues with NTFS problems on volumes over 8 gigs after some period of time.

I also think that is part of the reason most people end up reinstalling windows after a few months of running it.

[jmatt]

http://www.geocities.com/budallen98_98/copy95.html

Method 2 - Using the Explorer
1. Open the Explorer

2. Make sure you can view hidden files
- View / Options / Show all files

3. Move to the root of your C: Drive

4. Highlight the first directory in the right hand panel

5. Press Shift-End to select all files and subdirectories

6. Unselect the file WIN386.SWP While over one of the highlighted
files or directories, right click on the mouse and select Copy.

7. Move to the root of your new hard drive

8. Right click the mouse and select Paste

When you are done with either method, remove your original hard drive,
set your new hard drive to be a Master, and re-start the computer.

http://www.geocities.com/~budallen/
How To Install a New IDE Hard Drive

7. Now you two drives should be working together. You can install a
new OS on your NEW drive, AND/OR copy the info from your OLD drive.
8. Determine the drive letter of your OLD drive.

1. If it is F: for example. ..Type COPY F:\dos\xcopy.* OR COPY
2. F:\windows\command\xcopy.*
3. Then you could type XCOPY F:\*.* /S
4. This would then copy all files and subdirectories from your OLD
drive.

Put your operating system on the master drive ( Fat16 ) & everything , unless the program says it has to go on C , onto the slave ( Fat32 )

[jmatt]

Another thing you can do , is go to the HD's make site , they all have ghosting / disc manager utilities free .

[bobcat]

PM will create new partitions on HD by coping the old partition.

[rmanet]

I think the question was - why so large a partition (8 gig) for the OS - if that's all you're using it for wouldn't you be better off using a smaller partition?

I also am swapping out some drives and everything I've seen says using the explorer, xcopy32 or xcopy methods may not cause problems at first, but over time you'll run into errors (for filenames, etc and for older apps) that may need fixing by reinstalling apps or changing shortcuts, etc.

Looks like I can download the demos from PM or Symantec to get my changes done and so far it looks like the best solution to me.

Any other thoughts?

p.s. if you're looking to sell those old drives, e-mail me.