Swapping out hard drives in Windows ME

[ndbdesign]

Hey everyone hope you can help me out.

I need to swap out a hard drive in Windows ME,from a 6 GB to a 60 GB.My plan was to install the new drive as the slave and copy over the complete old drive to the new one.Then take out the old and make the new the master.Does anyone know of any known issues with doing this.The computer is a HP Pavilion 8380,if that makes a difference.

If you might be so kind to give me any suggestions or better ideas that would be great.Also are there any utilities that might make this go easy.

Thanks,
ndb @ NDB Design

 

[dinosnake]

What you wish to do works great - there are no known issues once the process is complete. The only real issue is getting the copy accomplished - Windows is incapable of copying itself to a new hard drive. The reason is that a number of files have registry tags to tell the COPY command to ignore them, along with the fact that COPY & XCOPY were designed from the DOS days to ignore files with certain attribute bits, like hidden and system files.

Get yourself a program designed to move the OS from on HD to another - like Norton Ghost. These programs run outside of Windows and are programmed to ignore the attributes that give DOS COPY fits. They work great and are easy to use. Your mileage may vary...

 

[ANFPS26]

If one of these drives is a Maxtor, they have a free utility to do this called "Maxblast II" at this site:

http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....."

 

[ANFPS26]

Click on "Product Support" and "Software and Utilities"... "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing....."

 

[wolluf]

If you do the copy in explorer (just select all files and copy, then paste to new drive) it will work fine as long as you've enabled settings to display all hidden and system files. But before you do copy, you should make the new disk bootable (so system files are copied to right location on the new disk). For this you'll need to boot from windows boot floppy (if WinME boot floppy, disconnect old drive first as it only allows making C: drive bootable). Assuming you've already formatted drive and its only drive attached, type sys c: at the a: prompt. Now reboot (with old drive reconnected as master) and do copy - when it comes to copying system files you will be prompted to allow overwrite - say yes. New disk should now boot same as old, when its master.

PS. You don't need to copy the swap file. Also, would be good idea to 'clean up' drive (temp, internet temp files etc) before copy.

 

[ndbdesign]

Thanks everyone i've started copying the files over,but i'm havin a little problem with some programs that r still running.

Would starting in safe mode prevent this?

If so i can't seem to get the right command or key(ctrl,del,F1,etc..)at start-up to access it?

Is there some trick in ME to get that command?

But so far everything is going fine except for these little probs.

Please bear with me i'm still lacking in some of the knowledge but i'm trying to learn and this is my first dealing with ME.

 

[wolluf]

You should be able to get into safe mode by pressing Ctrl or F8 key before windows starts loading. You can use Ctrl+Alt+Del in windows to get list of running apps - you can terminate apps from here - just leave systray & explorer running.