2 hds, going to wipe and reload on one,while saving data on other How?

[super1manx]

OK, guys heres my plan. I have 2 hds one's 200g and the other 160g. I have lots of info that i want to save. I was thinking of passing all of my info on my 160g hd since it doesnt have win on it and use my 200g to wipe and reload. What are the correct steps to do this?
The reason i ask this is because i have done this before but when i reinstalled winxp only some of my info on my 2nd hard drive was available the other dissapeared, the data that dissapeared seemed random. I dont want this to happend again. What are the proper procedures to do this, since last time I only draged and drop the info to my 2nd hd.
So once again this is the scenario: I want to wipe and reload winxp pro, save data on my 160hd currently partitioned into 3 sections. wipe clean my 200g hd and load winxp pro on that. All this without loosing a single file on my 2nd hd.
Do i need to put all the partitions back together on my 2nd hd before?
What steps do i need to follow to completely save my data?
Any help would really be appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

so you've got 200GB drive with XP on it, which you want to completely back up. And a 160GB drive, currently partitioned into 3 to back up to.

1. How much data is on the 200GB drive
2. Is whole 160GB drive free?
3. Do you have any software (eg, ghost, partition magic) suitable for this sort of job?

With a utility like ghost, you can create an image of the entire hard drive, and save it as an image file on the second hard drive. Ghost has an explorer facility which lets you view the image file as if normal filestore (so you can copy files/folders out of it). Ghost will create the image after rebooting machine or from a boot floppy.

You could use XP's backup utility (I've no experience of this), or you could just copy & paste using explorer, or zip everything up. These last 2 options will not allow you to copy some files, because they are in use.

Anyway - some ideas - post back if you need more information

 

[paparazi]

super1manx
There should be absolutely no reason why you can't just simply copy and paste these files over into one of the partitions on the (160GB drive)
Obviously files/ folders/ pictures/ music etc will copy over just fine but installed programs etc won't.
Leave both drives connected but make sure that when installing/formatting etc you sellect the correct drive.
Don't know why you had the problem before, you shouldn't have had any files go missing, there must have been some reason for this!
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[wolluf]

Just one point I forgot to mention - make sure you've set hidden and system files to be visible in explorer if you're using copy/paste.