How to copy the entire contents of one drive over to another?

[cchen]

I just bought a 120gb WD SE drive to replace the 60gb Maxtor that I have..... the maxtor is currently my main drive
How can I copy everything on the maxtor over to the WD so that I can use the WD as the main drive? BTW I'm using Winxp...

 

[10102BORG]

You could use something like Norton Ghost or Drive Image to clone your Maxtor to the WD. =

 

[cchen]

Do I have to use some software program to do it?

 

[RickH]

Go to maxtor.com and download MaxBlast. It will partition, format and copy the drive. It's free. R

 

[Sushi]

Originally posted by: RickH
Go to maxtor.com and download MaxBlast. It will partition, format and copy the drive. It's free. R

I second that

 

[cchen]

Lets say I have some data on the new hard drive. If i use norton ghost to clone the image of my old hard drive over to the new hard drive, will the existing data on the new hard drive be erased?

 

[brentman]

Yes, it will erase any existing data on the destination drive.

 

[cchen]

Is there any way to do it without erasing the data on the destination drive?

 

[stockjock]

Only way I can think of is to get something like Partition Magic and make new partitions on your new drive...it shouldn't destroy your data as long as you leave it on the same partition its on now.

 

[bighurtx82]

Use the disk that came with the WD drive. It has an option to mirror another hard drive to it.

 

[cchen]

Ok, having a problem. I used norton ghost to clone the drive. Now, when I try to boot with the new drive, it says "Missing operating system".

Any solutions to this?

 

[cchen]

??

 

[nuonce]

Try reinstalling the same operating system again to the new HD but do not let it delete anything (don't format). That will just replace/refresh the existing system files and it should boot unless the physical drives aren't setup right.

After that I would recommend a clean install of the op system to a 2-5 gig partition with a format.

 

[KenGr]

Originally posted by: nuonce
Try reinstalling the same operating system again to the new HD but do not let it delete anything (don't format). That will just replace/refresh the existing system files and it should boot unless the physical drives aren't setup right.

After that I would recommend a clean install of the op system to a 2-5 gig partition with a format.

WinXP needs a lot of headroom. I would create an 8GB partition as a minimum. Since I don't like to fight Windows I install the applications on the OS partition and my WinXP system now has about 11GB used on a 30GB partition, even with all the data files and temp files directed to a different drive.

 

[cralston]

Is it critical to have Windows XP on its own partition? What is the benefit?

 

[tjaisv]

Originally posted by: cralston
Is it critical to have Windows XP on its own partition? What is the benefit?

IMO it all depends on your own preferences and whether or not you store any critical data on the same disk. Many people like the previous prefer to install their OS and program files onto one partition (C: for example) and their data/critical/misc files onto another partition (D: for example). That way if their OS crashes they can just format their C: drive and retain D:

But if the whole hard disk goes bad physically, then they've lost everything (unless there's a way to salvage data on bad disks, I don't know). So that's why there's things like RAID 1 and what not, for maximum data-loss prevention.