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Installing New HD

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Original Message
Name: DM
Date: June 2, 2003 at 23:18:05 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
OS: xp home
CPU/Ram: 1700 Athlon 768 sdram
Comment:

Hey,

I was going to go out and buy a new pc (or build my own), but due to unforseen problems with the old car, I can no longer afford to do that right now. So I decided to upgrade my current pc, piece by piece. My first order of biz is to get a new hard drive.

I currently have a 60 gig 5400rpm drive which i want to replace with a 120 gig 7200 rpm hd. The key word here is REPLACE. I don't want to "add" this as a new drive. I want it to be my only hard drive. Now my question is: How the hell do I do this? lol.

My pc is a {{cough}} HP. So I do not have the XP disc. Is there a way I can do this without losing any info or having to reinstall windows? Norton Ghost?? (not familiar with ghost but heard it's a great prog)

If somebody could hook me up with some instructions (or a place to get instructions) I would really appreciate it. I have installed video cards, sound cards, cd drives - but never a hdd. Remember though, I want to REPLACE the drive. So the current drive I have now will be in the trash. If it is possible (i don't know if it is) I would like to do this without losing any of my data.

Thanks a lot in advance. I really appreciate all the help I get from you guys at the forum. I've been coming here for about a year now and you've never steered me wrong.
God Bless!

DM


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Response Number 1
Name: konaboy
Date: June 2, 2003 at 23:34:46 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
Reply: (edit)

Use Ghost, my Symantec. It'll clone a drive to another drive....exactly.


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Response Number 2
Name: hwood
Date: June 3, 2003 at 00:05:16 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
Reply: (edit)

DM:

The drive cloning software from the hard drive manufacturers are free. Most retail hard drives come with a disk cloning type utility. Usually, if you buy an OEM drive you can download that same disk cloning utility from the manufacturers website. Sometimes these do not work with drives formatted NTFS. Check the manufacturers website before you buy.

I see Western Digital includes their drive clone utility as part of their Data Lifeguard Tools and the Maxtor Maxblast utility copies hard drives also. The latest versions of both of these (version 10.0 and version 3.6 respectively) include NTFS support.

Norton/Symantec Ghost is a great product (I have used it many times) also, but it is a commercial product, so you will have to buy a copy of it.


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Response Number 3
Name: DM
Date: June 3, 2003 at 00:55:10 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
Reply: (edit)

Cool, Thanks. But could someone let me know the general steps I would take to do this. (replacing the drive)?


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Response Number 4
Name: Free Weasel
Date: June 3, 2003 at 03:19:05 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
Reply: (edit)

Hi DM,
as I did this a couple of times on my own two systems I try to give you a correct walkthrough.
Personally I use Partition Magic from PowerQuest but it's not that cheap. Hwood is right, if you only want to copy the partitions it's better to use the free tools.
Partition Magic comes in if you use different partitions as it allows you to build, split or to unite them or simple to change their size if needed.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First off, don't erase the old drive before you're sure the copy on your new drive works !!!
And make sure you mainboard can handle a 120 GB drive. Maybe you have to update your bios !!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1)
Download the software to copy the drive from the internet. Nearly every manufacturer of harddisks should have a suitable program!
But make sure it's able to handle NTFS if you have NTFS partitions. With XP I think you have!

2)
Check how the software works because you may need to boot with a bootdisk. to make the program work.
If needed you should find one here:
http://www.bootdisk.com/

3)
Install your new drive as a second drive in the computer. I suggest jumpered as Master on your second IDE controller if you have a second cable (if you have a second device there it has to be jumpered as slave or you can just remove the ide cable from it while working with both drives).

If you have only one IDE cable install the new drive as slave behind your main drive will also work but check the jumpers on your old drive because a few drive have a special setting for an only drive on the cable. Your old drive has to be set on master the new on slave!

4)
Now you can boot your computer (with a bootdisk if needed!) and start the program. As I don't know what program you use you have to follow the instructions on the screen or maybe there is a help to guide you.
If you have more than one partition and the software doesn't offer to copy the whole drive as it is start with the first partition and go through until you reach the last!

Maybe the software also allows you to resize your partitions or to build a new one to fit with the new size!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But make sure you copy from you old drive to the new one and not the other way around!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5)
After you're done with the copy unplug your old drive and put the new into it's place and replug all other ide devices you unplugged before. You also have to set them back to their original master/slave settings.
Now you should be able to boot your computer as normal with the new drive. If it doesn't work you have to try again, maybe with a different program!

6) (if you couldn't resize or build partitions under 4) )
Now you may have to work with the still free space on you new drive. I'm not sure if fdisk still works with XP as I never used it with it. If it still works you can set one or more new partitions on the still free 60 GB of the new drive.
I also just read that you and use the XP Disk Manager to make a new partition in unused space. See here:
http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/46812.html

If you want to resize your old old partitions you have to use a partition manager that's able to handle NTFS partitions. I'm sure there are free programs out there to do that but I don't know one so you have to look for yourself !!!


BTW:
Why to want to kick a working 60 GB drive in the trash ???
Installed as a second drive it's more than fast enough to store your data, music, pictures and so on. As long as you don't install an OS or programs that need to load a lot of files or data the speed is not that important.
I use an old 8,4 GB DMA33 drive to store my own stuff like letters, pictures, downloads, my whole own files folder on it and it's more than fast enough to handle that. You don't even realise if it takes a little part of a second more to open or save a file you're working on.
If you just don't have the place anymore I'm sure you have a friend who will be very happy with a used 60 GB drive !!!!


I hope that helps !!!!!



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Response Number 5
Name: DM
Date: June 3, 2003 at 20:08:15 Pacific
Subject: Installing New HD
Reply: (edit)

Guys,

Thank you very much for all the info. I will be trying to do all this next week, so I will post back and let everyone know how it went.

Again, Thank you for all your time and effort.

Regards,
DM


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