Clone old HDD settings and files to new HDD to boot from new

I would like to transfer the operating system, programs and files to a new larger hard disk (80 GB) and use this to boot the OS from, while using the smaller one (20 GB) just for data storage.

I already gave it a try. I used acronis migrate easy to clone my old harddisk to the new larger one. Some forums on the net say not to reboot before the two harddisks have been switched from primary master to slave and the other way round. I skipped this procedure by mistake.
I switched the two harddisks just the same to see what happened but at reboot the PC gave me an error saying "error on starting OS" or something on those lines. The problem is because the drive letters had not been switched.
I went around this problem by switching the drive letters manually from the register, through Local machine > system > mounted devices

It didn't work at first, I had to press F8 and select load most recent configuration which worked. Then the OS loaded from the new larger hard drive, but the settings were incorrect. I couldn't connect to the internet. So I went all the way back and undid the changes and here I am.


Does anybody know of a good way around transfering the files and settings from one hard disk to another without trouble?

And most important, if I use a device like Acronis Migrate easy or true image how can I make so that the drive letters get switched so that at reboot the PC recognises the OS in the right hard drive? I'm asking this because I'm assuming that a perfect clone of the old drive would retain the shortcuts as is, that is, if before they were shortcut to a folder in C: they would remain so

Should the PC convert the drive letters automatically?

 

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Hi sailormoon21,

I don't understand anime especially the girly ones. I do like cows!

Ok I've used Nortons ghost to do this job which came complimants of the downloadable ultimate boot disk. I format the hardrive and ghost from C: to D: no problems. I have always set the new drive as master and booted it up solo no slave. This protects my original data. Run for a couple of days then add your slave drive.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Not sure if Ghost is still on the current version but something will be.

Post back any problems.

Cheers

PhilD

 

Thank you for your feedback

I tried to do the same with Norton Ghost a couple of times but always to no avail. When i set the new hard disk to a Master, at reboot I get "Error loading Operating system" or something like that.
The OS works perfectly in the original HDD so I don't know why, if the program is cloning as is, there would be a problem in the new HDD. Many people say that the change to Master should be made after cloning and before turning the pc on again, I did that but still ... I'm left with a bad copy and a big problem

 

Cloning with Acronis True Image is fairly straight forward
Set up new drive as slave.
Clone from old to new.
Set up cloned drive as master
Done

 

Hey sorry your having so much trouble, I don't know what to add. I have only ever used ghost and it pretty much just worked as follows;-

Install new drive as slave.

Partition and format.

Boot from CD containg ghost.

Ghost C: to D: using full partition of D:

Turn off PC insert new drive as Master reboot.

Every thing boots and looks the same!

There may be something else going on. You may want to run some checks on your hard drives both new and old.


Phil D

 

Actually dodgyphil, I'm surprised that worked for you.

The proper process is to put the bare drive with NO partitions in the machine and let GHOST create the partition. If the new drive has a drive letter assigned in the image, you'll frequently get a login boot because Windows gets confused about the login drive.

 

John,

Your right, about allowing ghost to set the partion. Sorry Sailormoon, It's not something I do everyday, all good intentions and bad memory.

PhilD

 

Thank you for your feedback ppl, I will try formatting without partition letter as you specified as soon as I can.

 

Actually, you don't format the target drive, you leave it TOTALLY bare, just as it comes out of the box.

 

Okay I did as specified but the procedure still fails to do what it should.

I clone the old HDD to the new one, I shut down, switch jumpers, disconnect the old HDD, when I start the computer and at the point that windows xp should start to load I keep getting "error loading operating system"

I tried both acronis and norton ghost, the best two in the market, now, do these programs REALLY work or are they just for fun?


Does anyone know of an easy way to move at least the operating system to the new hard disk? Many will probably suggest to reinstall windows, but by doing that I will need to reinstall the programs and settings from scratch too, which I want to avoid.

 

For my part Acronis TI works very well
When you cloned the drive did you choose "Primary Drive" before the cloning procees?

 

I'm at a loss. I've used both GHOST 2003 and Acronis True Image many times to clone disks to larger ones, never had an issue.

 

I contacted norton ghost support and was told i need to check the "copy Master boot record " option for it to work properly. I will try that and see