Transferring Windows to another hard drive 3

[ttmac]

I have been experiencing problems with my hard drive and anticipate a full disk crash. I have purchased and installed a new hard drive in order to copy the entire contents of my original drive and to replace it with my new one, hopefully without losing any data or programs.

I am running Windows XP Home edition and have attempted copying using xcopy. This fails, however, because of permissions problems.

Can anyone suggest a method whereby I can perform this operation?

Thanks in anticipation,

Tom.

 

[rye8261]

Use Ghost or Drive Image, either will do the job.

 

[axlaxl]

I would suggest using Ghost, its probably the easiest method.

 

[linney]

If you encounter permission problems this is handy to know.

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP (Q308421)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp

I thought I read somewhere when you purchase a new hard drive some manufacturers have free?? software to enable you to copy the old drive over to the new one.

 

[bcastner]

Two thoughts:

. Go to the new drive manufacturer's web site and download their free diagnosti/setup utility for the drive. Nearly all offer a drive-to-drive copy utility free.

. If you are going to keep the original drive as a slave, then there should not be an activation issue posed by your plans. If you remove the original disk, you likely will face a re-activation request. Which is just a small p.i.a., use the phone option and just do it. See Jim Eshelmen's notes about why this is likely an issue if you pull the old drive:

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

His whole discussion is worth reading, but the drive issue is towards the bottom.

 

[ttmac]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you guys, I have been away for a few days to ring in the new year.

Thanks for the replies, however I do not have access to either Ghost or Drive Image and am using bcastner's and linney's suggestion by downloading a utility from the drive manufacturers website.

Thanks again for the assistance,

Tom.

 

[bcastner]

I forgot to note that if you want to remove the original drive from the system, you can use a freeware utility to change the Volume ID of the new drive to match the original drive: VolumeID

While WinNT/2K and Windows 9x's built-in Label utility lets you change the labels of disk volumes, it does not provide any means for changing volume ids. This utiltity, VolumeID, allows you to change the ids of FAT and NTFS disks (floppies or hard drives) on both Windows NT/2K and Windows 9x.

Usage: volumeid <driveletter:> xxxx-xxxx

This is a command-line program that you must run from a command-prompt window.

Note that changes on NTFS volumes won't be visible until the next reboot. In addition, you should shut down any applications you have running before changing a volume id. NT may become confused and think that the media (disk) has changed after a FAT volume id has changed and pop up messages indicating that you should reinsert the original disk (!). It may then fail the disk requests of applications using those drives.

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/misc.shtml