Okay, my problem is somewhat similar to one I was reading about on here from a few weeks ago, but not the exact same situation. I am currently using 6 gig HDD and I would like to copy this installation of windows and all the programs to a partition that I have created on the new HDD. To start, I have partition magic 7.0 (PM), which created my partions. Many of the things I have read suggested using PM to copy the partition to the new drive (which I have connected to my computer via USB). When I copy partition to the new disk everything is fine, it seems to have copied everything accordingly. ALso, I set the drive as an active primary partition and it should be bootable. The problem is, that when I switch the drives, and put the new on into the computer, it does not boot. I get the BIOS startup and diagnostics stuff, then it seems to hang at a blank screen. How might I make it so I can actually boot into windows if everything seems to be on the new drive from the original partition?

Unfortunately just copying all the files to a newly formatted disc with Windows' Copying function will not make that a bootable OS. You have to do a Drive Image /Backup and Restore for what you wanted to do. If you had used the new HDD's Software tools to do the Formatting etc as an IDE device in the PC , you could have copied the system from the old drive to the new Drive. Since you did not post any specifics about the New HDD, I can only reply in general terms. M

how is your Jumper set on the back of the new harddrive.. Also are you on the right ribbon section. Next it's also possible that Partition magic didn't copy over the boot sector. Junk Internet Explorer, Get Firefox! You'll be happy you did.

I realize you have a Notebook. In that case you have to use Ghosting using a CDRW/DVDRW and use the "recovery CD/DVD to restore the system and all files to new Disk M

The new hard drive is a 30 gig drive, but I have made a 10 gig partition using partition magic. There are no jumpers on the harddrive, nor is there any on the harddrive I am running on at the moment. I used the "copy partion" feature in Partion Magic to copy the system to the new drive, not the windows "copy" fucntion. So, the end result was an exact replica of the 5.5 gigs of my old harddrive on the 10 gig partition. When I did this, I told Partition Magic to make the drive active and unhidden. Just by chance, I did at one point put the windowsXP CD in and attempt to repair the installation, which it did, but it still would not boot. I guess this would lend one to believe the MBR didn't get copied? How would I go about doing that? Is there even a way? Thanks I had read a number of other websites that suggested this would work.

If you have already tried FIXMBR command to fix MBR using WinXP Bootable CD, I don't know of any other tricks. There may be other commercial products but I have not tried. I don't know of a freeware that is reliable. If you have a CD-RW/DVD-RW in that laptop you can use Drive image software like Acronis or Norton Ghost and create Bootable Recovery disc , and use that to create the new drive . M

I didn't know XP could boot from a USB device. But perhaps this will help http://www.aaltonen.us/archive/2004/03/01/tip-boot-from-usb-key-addendum/