replacing hard disk

[dcb007]

I am replacing 1 hitachi drive w/another, on win xp, What is the easiest way to make it an identical booting drive. Do I need a 3rd party tool? Hitachi's site says that disk manager is no longer distributed because xp handles everything?

Thanks, I know this is probably a common question, couldn't find exact answer.

 

[wolluf]

I don't know what 'Disk Manager' did - but most hard drive manufacturers have a utility to transfer old disk to new. If Hitachi no longer have one, you will need something like Powerquest's Drive Image or Norton Ghost to achieve your objective (XP does not have tools to tranfer the complete installation as is from one machine to another).

 

[dcb007]

Thanks alot, I was afraid of that.

By the way, xcopying everything, is that a possibility?

 

[wolluf]

To use any copy method, if its ntfs filestore, you'll need another working installation of XP/2k (because while XP is loaded a number of vital system files are 'in use' by the system and can't be copied. So you need the XP disk and new disk to be slave/secondary disks in another system to enable the copy). If its fat32, you may be able to run an xcopy from a 98 boot floppy (or xxcopy - freeware, use Google to find it, more options than xcopy). If you manage this, you will then have to run Recovery Console against the new drive (

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654)

and use the fixboot command to write a valid XP boot sector to the disk, to enable it to boot.

PS. You don't need to copy pagefile.sys.
PPS. I'm not an xcopy (or xxcopy) expert - but there are many posts detailing params you need to copy a whole drive on these forums - search for xcopy will probably turn some up if you need help there.

 

[dcb007]

Thanks so much for your time and info, I've learned alot about xp here. The computer is a friends; seems like buying disk image software is probably what we will have to do.

 

[sirene]

I am going to be replacing a hard drive, the first HD says it has bad sectors on it and windows cant be installed on it . It says to replace the disk. If I take this disk out, and replace it with a new disk, isn't that just a plug and play thing? And then just install windows on the new disk?

 

[edfair]

Plug and play to the limits of CMOS detection of drive size. If the drive is detected OK and the install proceeds OK you are OK. Problem comes with drives larger than the CMOS can handle.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.