Installing New & Copying Old Hard drive

[xzimbo]

Hi!

I have purchased a new hard drive to replace my old drive. I have Windows 98 on this drive. I want to copy everything as is onto the new hard drive. An aquaintance has given me a copy of Norton Ghost (on a floppy) & gave me instructions so fast, I cannot remember what to do. He suggetsed that I disconnect my CD-Rom & hook up my new Hard drive instead.

Can someone give me detailed instructions on how to copy my old hard drive to the new one?

Many Thanks,

Xzimbo

 

[Future]

Norton Ghost floppy disk should be bootable.

If the cdrom drive is on the second ide channel, then if you connect your new hard drive to that channel, when ghost boots, it should see the source drive as your old drive and the new drive as the target/destination drive.

I am not sure if both drives need to be the same size for ghost to work correctly.

Also, backup all your valuable data/programs prior to using ghost, incase of any errors that may occure.

ghost is pretty straight forward. just follow the on screen instructions.

If your cdrom drive is on the same channel as your hard drive, then connecting the new hard drive to the second channel will achive the same result.

 

[griffinspc]

This likely won't work. Ghost can copy to another drive but you'll encounter errors with the Master Boot Record and more.

I want to copy everything as is onto the new hard drive

I assume from this you want to make the new drive your master and boot off it. That's the rub. The two drives are different in size as well as configuration.

You'd be far better off to format the new drive, install your operating system and then load your programs and all hardware drivers from scratch. What you're attempting, if I understand what you want to accomplish, is a bad idea, Sorry.

 

[John Sparkman]

I have to disagree with griffinspc. I used Ghost just this week to clone my old drive over to a new one. Since I'm not that fast at typing I have provided a link below with the full instructions. NOTE: the instructions are for Ghost 2003. Check with your friend to find out which version of ghost he gave you.

Ghost disk-to-disk cloning.

John

 

[PcGrafix]

Check to see if your new drive came with a floppy disk, alot of them will give you a disk that will have a utility right on it, then you would as stated unhook the cdrom drive put in the other drive, Make sure that the jumpers are properly set for for each drive. Master being the the old drive & it goes on the furthest end of the cable, and the new drive as slave and on the connection right under that. Insert the floppy, turn on the computer. Look for the easy utility, it should give you step by step instructions and it's usually a very easy process, a few clicks and your done. Then you will want to set the jumper on the new drive back to master, put it on the cable where the old one was. Hook the cdrom back up and you should be ready to go. Of course make sure that when you are all done to remove the floppy.

 

[prunejuice]

...For example, MAXTOR generally ships MAXBLAST 3 with new drives (or you can download it from their website). It will do exactlly what you're asking.

I cannot stress this more. Every PC user should have a copy of this:
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

The ultimate in hard disk/partition management.

Oh yeah..did I mention that it's all free...and legal...

 

[griffinspc]

Well we can all disagree, that's natural. No problem here but be sure you understand the consequences of "cloning" this drive. If you decide to go ahead be sure to back up the important documents from the original drive before you dispose of it, or reformat it, after the clone.

I still feel the best course of action is to start anew. I hope it goes as smoothly as predicted if you choose to clone.

 

[xzimbo]

Thank you all, for your input - much appreciated. Your advice, griffinspc, is well-heeded. I am going to try to clone the drive, however. I shall post my experience.

Thanks,

xzimbo

 

[Future]

I hear what Griffinspc is say. I have used Ghost and on one occasion, all the files were copied, but the hard drive woudn't boot. However, as it was a windows 98 system, I booted with the floppy disk...and did sys c: and this copied the main boot information to where it should have been. Then I modified the MSDOS.SYS to correctly point to where windows win.com was.

I have used Ghost many times with out errors, but they can occur. So if your data is important to you, you should back it all up incase of an error occuring.

 

[griffinspc]

xzimbo, we'll be hoping for a smooth transition, good luck.

 

[crjdriver]

Any of the imaging programs such as Ghost, Drive Image, Acronis True Image can do this task. Rather than use one of those [unless you already own one of them], use the hd mgf's utility for copying the disk. It is easy, free, and you are not using someone else's software for the job.

 

[John Sparkman]

Hey xzimbo.
How about an update? Did things work out for you.

John

 

[xzimbo]

Sorry Guys, I had to be away on an emergency. I still need to replace teh hard drive. However, I have decided to simply install the new drive and load the programs onto it - more time consuming, but probably cleaner. Once again, I appreciate everyone's input.

Thanks,

xzimbo

 

[markkk]

Is there a reasonable friendly sequence of DOS commands to copy one hard drive to another ? [ I realize a floppy boot disk may be needed as well ]
OR more preferably, create a series of CD/R's with exact image
( bootable ) for copy /installing onto a hard drive - to achieve a system restoration or load a brand new drive ? I know there are the Ghost type programs, but thought investigating the DOS idea couldn't hurt.

 

[Future]

You could try using XCOPY at the command prompt.
This may or may not work. I am not sure if it copies long file names, so you should check this before you execute the command. Also, if your FAT is NTSF then it won't work.