My new hard drive indicates it will be failing, both when it starts up and once a day in the Event Viewer. I have a second hard drive. I have XP Pro installed. Can I copy everything from my C drive to the D drive and then when I get a replacement drive and have set the primary partition, formatted, etc. can I copy everything back and have a working operating system? The ONLY thing that makes we want to do this is that I have already had to call twice for my activation on XP Pro, Office XP, Visio, Frontpage, etc and really do not want to go through this again. (I would prefer to re-install as I know this gives a cleaner drive, but I just called in November when I put this new drive in.) (This activation thing is a pain in the XXX and probably does not stop those who do not have illegal copies anyway!) TIA
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Copying entire hard drive with XP Pro 2
- Thread starter Yooper46
- Start date
I have done what you are trying to do. I used PowerQuest's PartitionMagic(PM) to clear my second hard drive (D
of any partition - totally "unallocated" in PM's parlance. Then I copied via PM the entire WinXP partition in C: onto D:. PM will do the required formatting as it copies.
I think you could also use PowerQuest's DriveCopy to duplicate hard disks. Perhaps Norton Ghost may work as well in duplicating hard disks. I hope this works for you too.
of any partition - totally "unallocated" in PM's parlance. Then I copied via PM the entire WinXP partition in C: onto D:. PM will do the required formatting as it copies.I think you could also use PowerQuest's DriveCopy to duplicate hard disks. Perhaps Norton Ghost may work as well in duplicating hard disks. I hope this works for you too.
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JonJontheMighty
IS-IT--Management
Have you thought of trying this trick--
How to Put an Entire Drive into a Folder
This is something you can do with Windows XP that you could never do with those old Windows 9x/ME operating systems. This feature, called "Volume Mount Points" (also supported in Windows 2000) allows you to associate an entire partition with a single folder on your hard disk.
I recommend using the Volume Mount Points feature to free up disk space on a C: drive that's getting too full. If your C: drive is getting too full, you'll love this trick:
Create an empty folder on your C: drive called "NewDrive".
Install your new hard disk and open the Disk Management console. You can access Disk Management from the Run command. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Run command and click OK.
In the Disk Management console, right click on the new disk and click New Volume. Click Next when the Welcome to the New Volume Wizard dialog box appears.
On the Select Volume Type page, select the Simple option. Click Next.
On the Select Disks page, make sure the correct disk (the new one) is selected and then type in the size of the partition you want to create. The default is to use the entire disk. Type in the size in the Select the amount of space in MB text box and click Next.
On the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, select the Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option and then type in the path to the NewDrive folder. Click Next.
On the Format Volume page, accept the default settings and click Next. Click Finish and the volume will be created and formatted.
Find some folders that are taking up a lot of space. Right click on those folders and click the Cut command. Then click on the NewDrive folder and use the Paste command. Note that you shouldn't do this with Program Folders and System Folders, as there are many files in use in those folders so you won't be able to reliably copy them to the new location. The Cut and Paste operation moves the files from their old folders into the new one.
Notice that all the files still appear to be on the C: drive. This makes it easy for you to save all your stuff to the C: drive, but actually use the space on the new disk.
You can, of course, name the folder whatever you wish instead of NewDrive.
Jon
jonjontheMighty
How to Put an Entire Drive into a Folder
This is something you can do with Windows XP that you could never do with those old Windows 9x/ME operating systems. This feature, called "Volume Mount Points" (also supported in Windows 2000) allows you to associate an entire partition with a single folder on your hard disk.
I recommend using the Volume Mount Points feature to free up disk space on a C: drive that's getting too full. If your C: drive is getting too full, you'll love this trick:
Create an empty folder on your C: drive called "NewDrive".
Install your new hard disk and open the Disk Management console. You can access Disk Management from the Run command. Type diskmgmt.msc in the Run command and click OK.
In the Disk Management console, right click on the new disk and click New Volume. Click Next when the Welcome to the New Volume Wizard dialog box appears.
On the Select Volume Type page, select the Simple option. Click Next.
On the Select Disks page, make sure the correct disk (the new one) is selected and then type in the size of the partition you want to create. The default is to use the entire disk. Type in the size in the Select the amount of space in MB text box and click Next.
On the Assign Drive Letter or Path page, select the Mount in the following empty NTFS folder option and then type in the path to the NewDrive folder. Click Next.
On the Format Volume page, accept the default settings and click Next. Click Finish and the volume will be created and formatted.
Find some folders that are taking up a lot of space. Right click on those folders and click the Cut command. Then click on the NewDrive folder and use the Paste command. Note that you shouldn't do this with Program Folders and System Folders, as there are many files in use in those folders so you won't be able to reliably copy them to the new location. The Cut and Paste operation moves the files from their old folders into the new one.
Notice that all the files still appear to be on the C: drive. This makes it easy for you to save all your stuff to the C: drive, but actually use the space on the new disk.
You can, of course, name the folder whatever you wish instead of NewDrive.
Jon
jonjontheMighty
The installation disks that come with new drives will copy entire disk to disk (or partition to partition). MaxBlast II Plus form Maxtor is available free-of-charge form the website. Data Lifeguard from Western Digital is also free for the website (the two are practically clones).
Each makes a bootable disk that will allow you to copy disks (partitions). I have two 60 gb disks (one WD and one Maxtor) that I periodically copy one to the other as backup.
After swapping the drives chkdsk does fix some file system things on the initial boot.
Each makes a bootable disk that will allow you to copy disks (partitions). I have two 60 gb disks (one WD and one Maxtor) that I periodically copy one to the other as backup.
After swapping the drives chkdsk does fix some file system things on the initial boot.
conceptumator
Technical User
The setup disks for a lot of new hard drives that are supposed to copy your data over will not always work with XP. I tried Seagate's Disc Wizard and it flopped! Drive Image will not function on XP either. I used Ghosr PE and finally got things to go.
conceptumator,
Drive Image works very well for me on XP Pro..... I do a new image once a month at least and stash it on another partition as a backup. Have had to use it once, no problems. Maybe you have an old version. Help us to help you, please post back and tell us if this helped.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
Drive Image works very well for me on XP Pro..... I do a new image once a month at least and stash it on another partition as a backup. Have had to use it once, no problems. Maybe you have an old version. Help us to help you, please post back and tell us if this helped.
All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.
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Mulga,
You don't mention if your disk is basic or dynamic. It makes a difference. I couldn't get Drive Image to work (two different versions). Becoming frustrated, I did the unthinkable and read documentation. Powerquest Drive Image does not support dynamic disks.
You don't mention if your disk is basic or dynamic. It makes a difference. I couldn't get Drive Image to work (two different versions). Becoming frustrated, I did the unthinkable and read documentation. Powerquest Drive Image does not support dynamic disks.
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