Copying a hard drive to another hard drive.

Hellrazer

Ive just got a second new hard drive,a 120gb maxtor.
Now what I need to know is this
XP is installed on a 20gig(c) drive which I had from my old system.In my Pc is a 80gig drive(d) which I want to use as my one of my main drives-In other words I want rid of the 20gig one and have the 120 and 80 in the pc.Is there any way to avoid a reformat again as Ive finally got my pc back to the way I wanted it and the thoughts of another reformat is killing me.
Can I copy the entire contents of C: over to ,set up D as a master drive(its now a slave) and boot from it??In other words copy my OS to the d drive and set up the pc to boot from that in order to avoid the reformat as an XP reinstall seems to take forever.
Thanks
Richie.

Mr. Fancypants

If you can get your hands on a copy of Nortons Ghost you can copy an image of your existing system drive onto your new drive and off you go.

I saw on a thread somewhere else recently about a freeware application that does something similar. Look for a thread called Hard Drive Dying or something similar.

The Muppet

The software is called drvclonerxp and the link to the post which contains further info that will help you is here .

ColmOT [MSFT]

You will have to set the drive letter of the drive where you copy the 'stuff' to as the C: drive.

When you install Windows, it takes the path to where you tell it to install, and hard codes this path in the system. A straight copy most likely won't work.

Hellrazer

Originally posted by ColmOT [MSFT]
You will have to set the drive letter of the drive where you copy the 'stuff' to as the C: drive.

When you install Windows, it takes the path to where you tell it to install, and hard codes this path in the system. A straight copy most likely won't work.

But surely when I put the D:drive in the machine its own it will automatically be set at C:drive so that situation shouldnt arise??
Richie

DirtyDog

Go with Norton's Ghost (Ver 8) works like a charm, I've used it about 4 times and never had any issues with it.

If you need a copy send me a pm.

vibe666

driveclonerxp will do the same as ghost for free, and without breaking the law.

you might want to think about editing that last post DD. if a mod see's it you're likely to get a spanking.

Hankster

This method will also work. Takes a little bit of work, but still a lot less than reinstalling everything from scratch.

Hellrazer

Thanks for all the help.Think Ill just do a full reinstall--Seem like a lot less hassle.
If I do a full reinstall will this affect the applicationS that are on my other drive ie the one without the O/S?

rabbitinlights

when you do a ghost of a drive, is the original copy left intact?

Sean

Mr. Fancypants

Yep, leaves the original drive intact.