How to copy one Hard Drive to another?

[SuperFreaky]

I just got a new 30GB hard drive and wanna make an exact copy of my old 8GB onto it...
I'm guessing they make programs that can do this?? any good freeware ones?? if not what can I use?

 

[rhinox99]

Norton Ghost is a really useful utility for copying drives.

I'm not sure if there are any freeware that'll do it but you might be able to do it with the xcopy program that is built into windows. Maybe someone more experienced with xcopy can shed some light on how to use it.

 

[KaiLord]

Usually there is a utility on the floppy that comes with the new drive to clone your original drive. I know maxtor drives come with one.

 

[dcdomain]

You talking about maxblast right? I've never really used the copying utility... usually just use the maxblast to partition the new drive. Look into it... it's on Maxtor's website, free for you to download. It works with other drives, I've used it on a couple of other brands.

Perhaps this is an opportunity for you to start fresh. Fresh install an os and your programs, and just copy the data over if you have the time to do so...

 

[SuperFreaky]

I usually do a fresh install every couple of months... but I just did one last week, and finally got all my stuff reinstalled! So I'm looking for an alternative

 

[Whitedog]

Format every couple of months? HAHAHAHA, quit running 9x then!

Load Windows 2000 and you won't format again!

Oh, it must be fun "reloading" all your software all the time. ROFLMAO!!!

 

[Whitedog]

A word about using XCOPY to duplicate a disk. You can do it as long as you don't try to copy the swap file (win386.swp), HOWEVER, it Does Not preserve long file names properly and is NOT RECOMMENDED to do by Miscrosoft. Get some dishonest person to e-mail you ghost.exe. It's like 600k. OOOOPS! hehe

 

[dcdomain]

In that case, have you looked at MaxBlast yet? Here's a link... http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm

Just read up on it, yes they allow you to make an exact duplicate of your existing drive... =)

 

[KotchY]

I just put that seonc drive in as slave, go in windows explors seletect everytihng, and copy it to drive, works everytime

 

[SuperFreaky]

I'm typing this message on my win2k machine, thank you
The win98 machine is for my entire family's use, they don't like win2k.

 

[Spook]

Someone mentioned Norton Ghost... When you do use it, install your OS, and your Base programs, ie Acrobat, Winamp, Winzip... and your drivers, and base settings(TCPIP setup, memory, etc.)... then back it up... And then the headache is reduced to 10 minutes of restoring, and installing whatever programs your family wants...

I've use it all the time...

 

[Jhhnn]

Your drive manufacturer probably offers one as a free download, or on the utility disk that comes with retail drives. I read a blurb somewhere that Seagate supposedly has a new free utility package that will work on any drive.

Using the utility that came with my new WD drives was a snap, don't know about the others.

Free is good, so long as it works.

 

[Whitedog]

KoTcHy,

If you try to do that and have win386.swp selected along with the rest of the drives files.. it WILL NOT work. Everytime! You'll get some bogus message like "could not copy bla bla bla. file in use" and the copying terminates.