Can I simply 'Ghost' my Win2k install to a new hard drive?

[Nighthawk69]

Hi there,

1. I have a 17GB hard drive right now and I'm running out of room, plus I want an ATA100 drive. If I were to upgrade to a 60GB or 80GB hard drive and keep my current one as a slave, could I simply use Norton Ghost to 'ghost' over my Windows 2000 Server install from the 17GB to the new hard drive? I've done this with Windows 98SE, but not 2k, so I wanted to check.

2. I would be adding a Promise controller card to run at ATA100 with the new hard drive, so I simply hookup the new drive to that and leave the other hard drive setup on the motherboard (along with my other 4.3GB, yes that would be 3 hard drives), right?

3. Where do I change the master and slave settings with a controller card, or does it matter?

4. Will the computer know which hard drive to boot to after the ghost operation? If not, how is this set?

5. Anything else I need to know! I've never used a controller card before, but since I have 4 IDE items already and my board does not do ATA100, I need the controller card to add a hard drive and keep my others in there at the same time.

Thank you very much! I appreciate any help you have to offer!

Best Regards,

 

[JesseKnows]

1) Just ghost is not very good with WIn2K / XP. You need to use Sysprep. I am not an expert in that, try to look things up on Microsoft's site. At least change the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\Winlogon\Userinit (see Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q249321).
2) Yes, although you need to set up the boot device (see below).
3) Doesn't matter, this is set up in the drives, like regular IDE.
4) You need to tell the computer to boot from SCSI in the BIOS.
5) Oh, no question 5 Do add the drivers for the Promise before the ghosting. Put the card in the computer with the new drive empty. Let the OS discover the new card and give it the drivers. Then reboot to the ghost diskette and do the copy.

 

[Nighthawk69]

Thanks JesseKnows!

If anyone else knows exactly how the ghosting process should work with Windows 2000, I would appreciate your comments!

Best Regards,

 

[S0me1X]

I use ghost all the time with Windows 2000. I have one 40 gb hard drive split into a 2 partitions: 5 and 35. Windows and apps are installed on the 5gb, everything else goes to the 35gb.

When I need to ghost, I boot up to dos using an old Win98 boot disk. Then I run ghost, and restore. Pretty simple.

 

[Nighthawk69]

S0me1X:

OK, so what about when you change physical hard drives? Doesn't Windows 2000 overwrite the boot sector? Does Ghost move that over?

Basically, I just need to know if I can simple install my new hard drive and Ghost my Windows 2000 installation over from another hard drive and have it functioning perfectly without any hassles...?

 

[MoFunk]

<< S0me1X:

OK, so what about when you change physical hard drives? Doesn't Windows 2000 overwrite the boot sector? Does Ghost move that over?

Basically, I just need to know if I can simple install my new hard drive and Ghost my Windows 2000 installation over from another hard drive and have it functioning perfectly without any hassles...? >>



Yes you can. I do it quite often. I upgraded from a 13 gig dual boot to a 40 gig dual boot. My 13 was split into 2 drives and I wanted my 40 into 3. So I fdisked and formatted the 3 partitions. I then ghosted over my Win98 and Win2K to the proper new partitions. I took out the old drive and it booted fine. You should have no problems at all!

 

[Nighthawk69]

Excellent! Thank you very much all!

 

[PUNKtotalled]

I use a promise ultra66 pci controller for one year and a half now, and I never had to setup my bios to boot from SCSI. Can I ghost my harddrive like S0me1X did under XP?

 

[RBlount]

<< ) Just ghost is not very good with WIn2K / XP. You need to use Sysprep. I am not an expert in that, try to look things up on Microsoft's site. At least change the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\Winlogon\Userinit (see Microsoft Knowledge Base article Q249321). >>



You should not have any problem ghosting a W2K hard drive when you will using it on the machine. The only time you want to use SysPrep is when you are going to be ghosting multiple units and need to make sure the SID information or hardware information is recreated.

-Rob

 

[rosebud6]

I've used Ghost with 2k,nt,server,98se with no problems. The best way to do it is to use the Ghost Boot Disk. Very nice. 1 floppy and its done. Ghosted about 16gigs in about 15 min to a 40gig (both western digital) very easy. Need some help... rosebud6@core.com
Good Luck