System transfer to new hdd

[Abbadon2001]

Just got myself a new sata hdd to replace my ageing ide drives, and let them become secondary storage. I have only just reinstalled windows and as such would like to transfer the install to a partition on the new disc. Whats the best way to do this? Do i require software or can i simply copy it all over. I would have thought it wasnt this simple, nothing with windows ever is!

any advice is much appreciated

Andy

 

[Xie]

Let me see if I'm reading this correctly. You re-installed windows on your new SATA and you would like to just have IDE drives as backup. You would also like to copy the data from IDE drives to your SATA drive. As long as all you wanna copy is data and not like trying to move programs then you shouldn't need any 3rd party software .. just copy/paste.

 

[vern]

Yes, just re-install your old programs. All your userfiles should still be in your old hard disk.

 

[leedogg]

the way i read it your new sata drive is blank? if this is the case you need something like norton ghost to do a direct copy of your current drive to your sata drive.

 

[Ohzopants]

Abbadon, my advice to you is to start from scratch with all your programs, copy/pasting them might work quickly but I think you will spend more time ironing out minor glitches later on. As for all your data (music, documents, videos, random other ****...) can be copied as is from your old drive without a problem.

I don't think ghost will work lee. I have a ghost image of my fresh install, and I remember ireading that it would only work on MY drive, like it has to be the same drive or at least one with the same geometry.

 

[leedogg]

thats a possibility Ohz....I currently ghost/backup my main 60gb hd onto an identical 60gb drive...havent tried ghosting to a different size drive. Anybody else know about this?

 

[Xie]

I think you could use a different size drive but you would have to partition it so that you were ghosting to a partition the same size as the one your ghosting from.

 

[Ohzopants]

I don't think so xie. I have 120gb drive partitioned into 8 parts (I'm picky about how stuff is stored) and it saved everything. So I think it copies the whole drive, partition info included.
I'm not 100% sure of this, but I'm pretty sure that's how it works.

 

[Xie]

I could be wrong. Thought I had read a post on here by someone claiming you could do it that way. Also probably depends on "ghosting" app you use.

 

[Abbadon2001]

whoa, thats a lot of posts without me even replying

leedogg, congrats your correct. i bought a new SATA drive, and i wish to transfer my o/s and progs all in one, so i dont have to spend ages getting it all the way i like again! The install is very new so this does make sense.

Is norton the only option i have or are there any other good software apps i can use?

Also does anyon else know if the prog will copy the partition info over? The new drive is 200gig, obviously totally blank and unpartitioned right now, the older drive is a 120 gig, split in to 2 bits, c = 7gigish and d = 103 gigish Im nottoo bothered bout ghosting the storage section as i will be leaving tat on the other drive for now - as lots of it is corrupted after my partition magic disaster earlier this week :S

Andy

 

[Ferral_Imp]

You could just install windows and all your apps onto your computer then over-write the folders for the apps with the folders on the old drive. I've done this with some games on my comp when I had to reformat before and it didn't give me any problems(moved all the game app folders to the external).

 

[leedogg]

Another possibility is that I recall there being a file/settings transfer wizard in the XP setup? This could allow you to port everything over to your new drive.

 

[Ferral_Imp]

Umm Leedog that only would work if Abbadon were transferring the files to a new computer according to the wizard.