Copying a Hard Drive

[raaudia4]

Can anyone tell me how to copy a hard drive. I plan to install a second hard drive to my laptop and copy the entire drive to the second drive. My question is: if I installed the second drive and issued the copy command would this copy the entire hard drive including the operating system?????

 

[wolluf]

rbaxter1 - which operating system are you using? With NT/2k/XP you can't copy all the files while the system is running (a number of system files are in use, and are not accessible). 9x/ME should be able to copy all files, apart from swap file I think (which you don't need anyway) - but it won't have a boot sector unless you create one first (run sys x: if already formatted or format x: /s if not).

I don't know what you mean by 'issue copy command'. You'd need xcopy with various options set if copying from dos/command line - but you can copy using explorer (copy/paster, drag and drop) as long as options showing all hidden and systems files set.

Best way is via a disk/partition cloning software like Ghost or Drive Image (especially if you intend booting from new drive).

 

[bcastner]

Go to the website of your hard disk manufacturer. Nearly all of them offer a drive utility (freeware) that you can download to copy the original drive to the new one.