Copy a WD hard drive in XP

[GuitarG]

I want to copy my C: drive to a larger capacity drive in XP. Both drive are Western Digital. WD has a good piece of software, Data Lifeguard, that I have used successfully many times in Win 9x, but it doesn't work in XP.
Any tips on how to safely copy the drive?
Thanks

 

[Guest_imported]

I used Norton Ghost 2002 and it worked beautifully... XP uses a new NTFS so earlier apps might think they can do the job and screw the whole PC up so be careful.

 

[smokeslikeapoet]

I don't think that Data Lifeguard is compatable with WinXP. There is a FAQ about it on the WD website.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/grid_alp.php

Second question on the list.

 

[GuitarG]

You're right, Data Lifeguard is not compatable with WinXP. That is why I am looking for an alternative method. It looks like Norton Ghost 2002 is the best solution however I keep hoping that Western Digital will come up with a utility for XP.

 

[seanpmi]

This sounds stupid but it worked for me (as I don't have Norton Ghost). I had a 10 gig slave that I recently updated to 60 gig. Like you, I didn't know how to go about copying the thing but found a way. Make sure you have the option turned on to view all files, hidden and system. Then copy the entire contents of your old hard drive to a folder under the other hard drive. Install your new hard drive and prepare it under Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Storage - Disk Management. Once it's formatted copy that entire folder to your new hard drive. Yeah, I know it was slow, but it worked.

 

[Guest_imported]

Actually, using Ghost will be your best bet. Copying data via Windows Explorer is extremely long and painful. With Ghost, you don't even have to worry about formatting your target drive. It just makes an exact duplicate of your original drive, plus expands it to fit on your bigger drive, if you want.

 

[smokeslikeapoet]

This should work with all versions of Windows but you need to fdisk and format the drive. Assuming the harddrive that you currently have Windows installed on is C: and the drive you want to transfer everything to is Drive D: click on start then run and type:

XCOPY C:\*.* D:\*.* /E/C/Q/H/R/K/Y/V

you might get errors about one or more files unable to be copied, but these files are not critical and should be rebuilt when you attempt to boot to this drive. I've tried this in a Windows98 machine with no problems. The only problems I forsee is if you are running NTFS with disk encryption. Hopefully you are running FAT32.

 

[s0121]

XP has it own file transfer program. but i use Fdisk>>Format>>> and xcopy...(see XP help on Xcopy) been using that since DOS 4.x. Frank Smith
s0121@starband.net
"SomeWhere in Kansas--"Near Dodge City"