transfer old hardrive data to new hardrive?

[Entity23]

What would be the best way to go about transfering data from one hardrive to another. I want to alleviate seting up all of the programs that are on it now. Is there a way? The hardrives will not be the same size or make or model. I thought maybe installing windows on the new one and then set it up as a slave and reinstall everything from the old disk onto the new one, but it seems to be a hassle. Any suggestions would be most appreciative.

 

[Wuming]

use norton ghost.

 

[Dead3ye]

Here's a link where I was asking the same question. Alot of different approaches. A utility from one of the manufacturers is the best way and is what I did.

 

[NOS440]

Usually most Hard drives come with a Utility on a floppy to copy your old drive to the new one. I know IBM and Maxtor's do. IBMs can be downloaded from there web sight. But I believe it will only work with a IBM drive.

 

[4824guy]

Major HD manufactorers ship their new HD's with software for coping over HD's, or you can download it from thier web sites. Companies like WD, Seagate, and Maxtor have this avaialbe.

There are also HD coping software. Russ's web site has one that a few people rav about. It is called file copy

Link is here

 

[Pederv]

Here's another aproach:
1) disconnect old HD and connect new as master
2) fdisk, partition,format, format primary partition with /s
3) make new drive slave or second master, reconnect old drive
4) my computer>view>folder options>view>show all files
5) control panel>system>performance>virtual memory>disable virtual memory
6) you may get low on memory errors during booting quit as many un-needed programs as possible
7) select a partition from your old HD and copy it to the partition you want to put it in
8) remember D: drive will become your C: drive
9) the rest of your partitions on your new drive will start there letters after the last letter on your old hard drive (if your old drive has the following partitions C:, E:, F: then your new hard drive will show D:, G:, H:, etc.
10 )when you copy the old C: drive to the D: drive you will be asked to overwrite 3 files io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com you want to leave io.sys and command.com but overwrite msdos.sys
11) make your new hard drive primary master go back and re-enable virtual memory

 

[Entity23]

wow guys thank you very much

 

[corkyg]

Pederv . . . for about $26 you can get Drive Copy 3.0 and do all that automatically without ever messing with FDISK, etc. Yesterday I cloned 4 30 gig drives from a master . . . 6 partitions and all software. Done in 15 minutes per drive.

 

[Pederv]

I know corky-g. I only do about 3 or 4 hard drive upgrades a year, at home and I'm cheap. Now if someone does a search on this subject and they're broke after buying the equipment to upgrade.....
At work we just have the users save what they want on the network and replace the hard drive.

 

[fargus]

I'll vote for Ghost, I use it constantly. It's great not to have to fdisk or format first. DriveCopy does an OK job too, just not my preference. A copy of Ghost often ships with motherboards, so you may already have it. You can also download a trial version here.

 

[Guvvy]

There's a utility out by the name of "Laplink". It's intended for transferring files from one's laptop to one's main computer. It needs a special cable which plugs into the printer port but it's fast.
I have used Maxtor's software utility - wasn't very pleased with it. I went from a 545MB to 8.1Gig so had to partition because my O/S topped out at 2Gigs per drive. I copied me 4 copies of my HD - one on C:, another on D:,E: & F: - a real bummer.

G.

 

[road]

Wurd up Corky-g but I'm a little more old skool, I prefer Pederv's method.

Thats just me though

Peace..

 

[Quickfingerz]

nearly all hard drive companies provide software on their site which copies entire partitions for you. What is the model of your hard drives?