copy complete harddrive to new harddrive fast way??

[geek1543]

I have a small hdd in one my computers now. I have a new larger one I want to install. I really dont want to just reinstall win98se. I want to copy the complete drive to the new drive and remove the old drive. With all the passwords, email addresses and programs it takes about 5 hours. I know there are several ways but have never done it. I was wondering could I install the drive as d drive after formatting it with c drive removed so it has active partiton and copy and paste c drive to d drive then remove c drive?

 

[AndyHui]

Ghost will do that job. It can copy 2GB in about 10 mins, so it's pretty quick. All you need to do is Ghost the partition from your old drive to the new drive, then just remove the old drive. Ghost will do all the dirty work for you.

 

[oblivion2888]

ghost baby!

 

[corkyg]

I like PowerQuest's DriveCopy 3.0. It will copy and set up any drive, same to same, smaller to bigger, bigger to smaller, partitions . . . the whole 9 yards from a DOS boot disk you create.It includes all the fdisk functions . . . you need not do any of that.

If you optimize your source drive first, then your copy will turn out optimized exactly the same.

It is very fast . . . a 20 GB drive takes only about 12 to 15 minutes depending on how much data is on it.

It is also very inexpensive . . . about $25.

I also have Ghost . . . but DC 3 suits me better.

 

[Ulysses]

You didn't mention what brand of drives you have or whether they're retail or OEM versions. Most new retail drives come with a free setup utility that will do all this kind of thing and more for you, including partitioning the new or old drive, etc. You might look at the website of your new drive's manufacturer for the downloadable utility (it should fit on a bootable floppy). Of course Ghost and other similar programs will do this too.

BTW, you might also consider using your old drive for backup purposes. Periodically I backup data only to my old HDD and then disconnect it. Removable carriers are even more convenient.

 

[geek1543]

Thank!!!! I used powerquest dumped my old drive on one of my other computers on my mini lan. The copied it back to the new hdd over the lan. Thanks again.

 

[Blain]

I just "ghosted" a smaller drive onto a larger one, WoW.
I couldn't bring myself to stop there. I resized the partition on the new drive with Partition Magic 5. WoW, again!
It just goes to show that you can be stupid and still get things done