Topic awaiting preservation: Want to copy hard drive to new computer (Page 1 of 1)

Hi all,

I'm looking to buy a new computer in a month or so, and I'd really like to be able to simply copy ALL my files (OS, application, etc.) from my current machine onto the new computer's (much, much larger, hee hee hee) hard drive.

This sort of thing is outside my experiences, so do any of you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your help.



Evil in theory, not so much in practice...

[This message has been edited by Wangenstein (edited 02-26-2003).]

You can burn all your data on rewritable CDs, or copy everything to a portable hard drive (you can surely borrow one). But I advise you to reinstall your OS instead of copying it.


Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your own life. The object can be stated this way : Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck.
--Darwi Odrade

Hmm. But doesn't that mean that I'll have to reinstall every program (due to those programs no longer being in the Registry)? I was really hoping to avoid that.

Personally, if you wanted an EXACT copy, then I'd set up the old drive as a master drive, and set the new drive as a slave.

Disc Copy


Then disconnect, set the new drive as a master, and ditch the old drive if you want..reset the bios...and BAM!


I prefer clean work though, so I doubt I'd ever do a flat disc copy for new drives.

"Reduced Functionality: Hard disks cannot be moved. Windows XP, and
Windows 2000, make it very difficult to move a hard drive to another
computer. Microsoft has written Windows XP so that it cannot be easily moved
to another computer. This article on Intel's web site describes the problem:
Moving a Hard Drive to a New Motherboard [Intel.com]. The article says,
"Moving a hard drive with Windows 2000 or Windows XP already installed to a
new motherboard without reinstalling the operating system is not
recommended."

Full article
http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm

I also advise you to reinstall all the softwares. It's very difficult to copy an installation from one computer to other, specially for complex programs. I know a few people that made it, with some applications, but they spent so much time trying to understand all the things going on (registry settings, for instance) that I'd say it's not worth trying it, unless the application is so small or simple (with just a few files) that by just copying it to another folder will do the trick.

About switching HDs, I think the new one, that came with the new machine, should be faster than the old one, so switching may not be a wise decision, under this circumstance.

-Just screw the other HD into comp.
-Format (fat32)
-On the old disk open the explorer (not Internet Explorer)
-Goto root dir (C:\)
-Press Ctrl+a (select all)
-Press Ctrl+a (copy)
-in explorer goto the root from the new drive (d:\)
-Press Ctrl+v (paste)
-get coffee... and leave the machine alone for a while.

But i would not do such thing better is on to install OS and programs to new hd and then copy all the data, like documents, pics, music etc. to their new homes. The motto here should be while moving also do some cleaning and get rid off some rubbish.

"Freedom of speech is by no means freedom to insult others" from the Razorart goodbye letter.

I never suggested switching hard drives.

Go back and reread..I'm suggesting a direct copy if that's what he wants. Easy to copy a disk image to a new drive if they're both connected to the same machine at one point.

Would I do it Myself?

Nope.

But then I made that point already. He asked for a specific action though, and it's a quick way of doing it.

I've got Win98, and having read NoJive's link (I'd already read it, but it's timely anyway, thanks), I don't plan to go to WinXP anytime soon.

Well, the prevailing opinion seems to be to suck it up and reinstall everything. It's a pain, but I know in my heart it's the right thing to do.

Thanks, all, for your suggestions and help. That's why I love this place.

It can technically work. Try this:

At the command prompt, type:

c:\>xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /e

The /e switch is important because it preserves your file structure. Now, this should work, but you may having problems getting the BIOS to think that your new hard drive is bootable. So, if it won't boot, try to do:

c:\>format d: /s

This will format your d drive with your system files and should make it bootable. Then use the xcopy command.

Now, this should work for Windows98, but I'm not sure it will with Win2k or WinXP.

Go ahead and try it and come back with any problems you encounter.

:edit: I should note that you need to make sure you can see hidden files or you might have problems copying everything over. :edit:




[This message has been edited by silence (edited 02-26-2003).]

Win2k & WinXP are much more sensitive to moving files than Win98(SE). In Win98, if I moved all the files of a program to another partition and then moved them back to the original one, nothing happened; but in Win2k & WinXP, if I do that, chances are the program is not going to work anymore, specially if it's a complex, full of files and folders application. The guys that make applications are getting smarter and making not WinXP more difficult to move, but also the applications.

My brother once tried to hook his old harddrive to his new computer and just reinstall all the drives. It would crash nearly every half hour until he formated and reinstalled windows from scratch.

Just copy the data and leave the programs, its the best way.

__________________________
"Show me a sane person and I will cure him for you."-Carl Jung