Copy harddrive without 3rd party software

If you need to ever replace your harddrive because of a failing drive or just wanting to upgrade to a larger drive this can be accomplished quite easily using Windows xcopy feature.

First thing we need to do is get the new drive set up and ready to use. The easiest way to do this is to remove your existing drive and set it aside. Then set your new drive to primary master and boot with your windows startup disk. When you get to the A: prompt type "fdisk" (without the quotes) enable large disk support at the next screen then choose option 1 to create your primary DOS partition. after drive verification hit enter make drive active then escape out of fdisk back to the A: prompt then restart your computer. At the A: promt this time type "format c:" (without the quotes) hit enter for volume label (you do not have to enter anything here) Then shut down your computer. Move the new drive to primary slave making sure that it is jumpered correctly and reinstall your old drive back in as primary master, also making sure that the drive is set to master or master in a 2 drive system then restart your computer. Once your in windows go to start/run and in the command box type:

xcopy c: d: /s/c/h/e/r/k

You will notice a command prompt window opening and your files will start to copying to the new drive. Once complete you can just exit the command window. then proceed to shutdown your system. Remove your drives and put your new drive back in as primary master and restart your system. You system will now boot up into windows and your system will not even show any changes (except for having more harddrive space if you upgraded).

Now if for some reason (and this has happened to me a couple of times) you get a message saying "non system disk"
Dont panic... just insert you boot disk and boot your computer and at the A: prompt type "fdisk" (without the quotes) and choose option 2 the make the partition active, escape all the way out of fdisk to the A: prompt. Remove the boot disk and restart your computer.

You now have your system back up and running without skipping a beat or loosing any of those hard to recover software apps.

Dave
BuckeyeComputers