Just bought a new hard drive... what to use to copy Windows install over?

[PremiumG]

Ok, i know this should be basic knowledge but this is the first time I've ever done this. My maxtor 160 gig has bad sectors and I just bought a 300 gigger to copy everything over. Usually I would just reinstall Windows, but there is so much crap to reinstall after that.

My 300 gig was OEM so it didn't come w/ any software. What can I do to copy everything over?

 

[BlueWeasel]

Both Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image can do a "bit-for-bit" copy of an existing drive to a new one, but they aren't free.

You might try checking out the HD Clone Apps (scroll down the page) HERE , and the drive manufacturer may have software that can copy the existing data over.

 

[corkyg]

I would use TrueImage 8 - but, as the man says, it's not free. You should be able to download and do it with MaxBlast.

Max

 

[Rottie]

Maxblast is easy to use I just downloaded it last night when I bought new Maxtor hd.

 

[PremiumG]

can i put the two hard drives in another computer and copy over the files?

i heard u can just copy/paste the whole operating system partition as long as you do it on another computer.