Info on HD formatting and copying

[Descend492]

Does anybody know where I can read up on formatting HDs and copying them over and stuff? I have a 10 G that I got from my dad that I want to add to my system, but I don't want to reinstall everything on it, I just want to copy my current drive onto it so it's the exact same, just bigger. Any sites with info on this would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[SPAnDAU]

Not sure about any sites with information on how to do this, but you can do this.

Put the 10G drive in your system as a slave drive. Fdisk it and format it. Then after you boot into windows go to a dos prompt and type this:

xcopy32 c: d: /s /e /r /h /c /k /y

c: being your current drive and d: being the 10G drive.

this command will copy all system, hidden and files in use. It will create a mirror image of your old drive on the new one.

After doing that, just master the 10G drive on the primary channel, and your set.

 

[Descend492]

What do all the /*'s mean after the c and d? Thanks for the info, though. That's exactly what I wanted to do.

 

[Ulysses]

This may be of some help:
http://www.zdnet.com/pcmag/stories/solutions/0,8224,2586419,00.html

Also:

The setup utilities that come on floppies with some new HDD's are useful for these purposes, like Western Digital's Data LifeGuard and Maxtor's MaxiBlast. After all, when you install a new HDD all you want to do is mirror your old HDD to the new, and that's exactly what they do. I believe you can download these utilities from their manufacturer's sites and they will work on any of your HDD's, as long as at least one of your HDD's is made by them (so the utility will start). They do automatically what in done by fdisk.exe, format.com and xcopy.com, except it's simpler (if you read the instructions).

Frankly, I've alwayss been a bit buffalo'd by xcopy too.

There are always things like Norton Ghost that do this stuff too, if you prefer to use the commerciaal stuff..

 

[SPAnDAU]

the /*'s after the c and d are switches to set parameters for xcopy.

/S = Copy directories and subdirectories, excluding empty ones.
/E = Copy directories and subdirectories, including empty ones. (I like redundancy to be safe 😉 )
/R = Overwrites read-only files
/H = Copies hidden and system files
/C = Continues copying even if errors occur
/K = Copies attributes
/Y = Overwrites existing files without prompting

 

[bonkers325]

use ghost
its that simple
u can even use it in windows

 

[Skot]

What about making a start up disk and using the old, format C: ?

That's what I do.