Jachyra007
asked on
Replacing current HD with a larger one
Ok guys, I'm trying to replace my current 30 gig drive, with a new 75 gig. Both are Western Digital, and I have successfully installed the second daisy-chained to the first, and I am using WinXP.
My problem, is that I want to copy the old drive to the new one. Using the tools provided by Western Digital, I tried to do a drive copy, but it has given me an error during the last 5 percent, the last 4 times I've tried it. CHKDSK and the scanner provided by WD both say no errors with my active disk, yet it does not copy completely.
I want to avod re-installing everything, hence the drive copy option. Also, I want to convert from FAT32 to NTFS in the process, and stop using my 30gig altogether.
What are my options to follow through on this?
Jer
My problem, is that I want to copy the old drive to the new one. Using the tools provided by Western Digital, I tried to do a drive copy, but it has given me an error during the last 5 percent, the last 4 times I've tried it. CHKDSK and the scanner provided by WD both say no errors with my active disk, yet it does not copy completely.
I want to avod re-installing everything, hence the drive copy option. Also, I want to convert from FAT32 to NTFS in the process, and stop using my 30gig altogether.
What are my options to follow through on this?
Jer
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ASKER
Ok, I went with the Ghost option, since I recently reinstalled everything, due to a partion resizing error. I have Ghost, and used it to copy the smaller disk to the larger. Now the only thing is that when I take out the original, and try to boot just from the new drive, it gets an error. Do I have to change te drive path/mapping at all? Or would my original drive have a static drive letter assignment that doesnt change?
ASKER
Actually, I didnt quite understand your directions about the Ghosting operation. Did you mean to
A. Ghost the original drive as an image to the new one.
B. Boot to old drive
C. Copy the new image from the new drive to the old one
D. Boot into Ghost with a bootdisk (which I did make)
E. Open the first image created on the new drive
F. remove the 30gig from the system completely, and set 75gig up as master of a one drive system.
How is that process different than just Ghosting a source disk to a destination disk, removing the 30gig from the system completely, and setting up 75gig up as master of a one disk system?
I know what Ghost does, this is just my first time using it. I read in the manual that Ghost errors if it attempts to overwrite swap or registry files. Would it copy the registry and the original drive exactally as it was? Perhaps, therefore the booting to dos-Ghost environment.
Thanks for all your help by the way.....
A. Ghost the original drive as an image to the new one.
B. Boot to old drive
C. Copy the new image from the new drive to the old one
D. Boot into Ghost with a bootdisk (which I did make)
E. Open the first image created on the new drive
F. remove the 30gig from the system completely, and set 75gig up as master of a one drive system.
How is that process different than just Ghosting a source disk to a destination disk, removing the 30gig from the system completely, and setting up 75gig up as master of a one disk system?
I know what Ghost does, this is just my first time using it. I read in the manual that Ghost errors if it attempts to overwrite swap or registry files. Would it copy the registry and the original drive exactally as it was? Perhaps, therefore the booting to dos-Ghost environment.
Thanks for all your help by the way.....
ASKER
Lol..one more thing here...
With converting to NTFS, I just use the convert cmd line option correct? and is there really a benefit to using NTFS over FAT32?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but NTFS has a greater security, as well as a smaller cluster size. Is there anything that FAT32 has over NTFS?
I've had a lot of errors in the past that caused me to reformat/fresh install, so I'm just trying to avoid that again, if at all possibile.
Jer
With converting to NTFS, I just use the convert cmd line option correct? and is there really a benefit to using NTFS over FAT32?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but NTFS has a greater security, as well as a smaller cluster size. Is there anything that FAT32 has over NTFS?
I've had a lot of errors in the past that caused me to reformat/fresh install, so I'm just trying to avoid that again, if at all possibile.
Jer
You can ghost it from one drive to another, but I've had problems with that because it was at work and I wasn't able to sit there was guard the machine during the whole process and other people in the IT department would come through and try to "help"...This resulted most of the time in an error of comedies...but if you are doing this on your home system or on a system where you have full control of it, then ghosting from one drive to another should be fine.
I set up over 40 systems (duplicate images) using the method above and had no issuess with the registry. I did have to reconstruct the swapfile a couple of times, but that is no big deal.
Yes, use the command line "convert" to convert from FAT32 to NTFS. Here are the MS recommended steps:
NOTE: Although the possibility of corruption or data loss during the conversion is minimal, it is recommended that you perform a backup of the data on the volume that you want to convert before you start the conversion.
To convert an existing FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS, follow these steps:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the drive that you want to convert:
convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs
For example, type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:
convert e: /fs:ntfs
When the following message is displayed in the command prompt window, type the volume label of the drive that you are converting, and then press ENTER:
The type of the file system is FAT.
Enter the current volume label for drive drive letter:
When the conversion to NTFS is complete, the following line is displayed in the command prompt window:
Conversion complete
Quit the command prompt.
I hope this helps.
bvinson
I set up over 40 systems (duplicate images) using the method above and had no issuess with the registry. I did have to reconstruct the swapfile a couple of times, but that is no big deal.
Yes, use the command line "convert" to convert from FAT32 to NTFS. Here are the MS recommended steps:
NOTE: Although the possibility of corruption or data loss during the conversion is minimal, it is recommended that you perform a backup of the data on the volume that you want to convert before you start the conversion.
To convert an existing FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS, follow these steps:
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the drive that you want to convert:
convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs
For example, type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:
convert e: /fs:ntfs
When the following message is displayed in the command prompt window, type the volume label of the drive that you are converting, and then press ENTER:
The type of the file system is FAT.
Enter the current volume label for drive drive letter:
When the conversion to NTFS is complete, the following line is displayed in the command prompt window:
Conversion complete
Quit the command prompt.
I hope this helps.
bvinson
ASKER
I suppose I need to copy the boot record as well, correct?
Right now, My system will not boot with the second hard drive missing for some reason. Even though it is formatted, there is no data on it, and the other drive is set to master. When booting, it cannot locate either the primary or secondary master drives.
Once I put the second drive back into the system, its fine. I found that kind of weird.
But I will try to use your method A-F as I interpreted it above, and Let you know how it goes.
Is that 6 step process of ghosting an image any different than just ghosting drive to drive?
Right now, My system will not boot with the second hard drive missing for some reason. Even though it is formatted, there is no data on it, and the other drive is set to master. When booting, it cannot locate either the primary or secondary master drives.
Once I put the second drive back into the system, its fine. I found that kind of weird.
But I will try to use your method A-F as I interpreted it above, and Let you know how it goes.
Is that 6 step process of ghosting an image any different than just ghosting drive to drive?
No, its no different than ghosting drive to drive, it just provides more control if you have to leave it where someone else may have access to it and not understand what is going on...
When booting with just one drive, make sure that your BIOS is set to Autodetect your drives...it should boot anyway, but sometimes computers get finicky...
When booting with just one drive, make sure that your BIOS is set to Autodetect your drives...it should boot anyway, but sometimes computers get finicky...
Try Norton Ghost - it comes with norton system works
Copy the entire disk image to the larger one and boot from it...it WILL work
Copy the entire disk image to the larger one and boot from it...it WILL work
ASKER
Thanks a lot bvinson. Ghosting it did work, I just needed to dink around with it a little. My new drive is working great, and NTFS compliant.
Thanks for all the help.
Jer
Thanks for all the help.
Jer
ASKER
Gave great help, fOllowed trough and was clear. Good Job
Switch drives, make newo one master, old one slave.
Boot XP CD. Install to new HD.
Boot new HD
Copy any files you want from other HD, either open Window for CMD and run its XCOPY command or exercise more control and copy using explorer.
Note that any applications would have to be reinstalled if they use registry for configuration information, for example: MS_Office.
But in end you get more remaining space since you effectively delete temporary files and other odds and ends you do not care about, so space used on c: will be less.