WinXP and Replacing system HD

I have 2 SATA HD's. A new one is much faster than the one that came with my
system.

The new HD has a 40MB faster xfer rate than the present HD.
I want to setup the new HD as the system disk and keep the older one as
basically a big storage HD which means transfering the OS to the new HD. I
have Acronis TI which lets me create an image of any HD.

The old HD is 160GB, new one is 200GB. Physically swapping the HD's is not a
problem but since they are not the same size????

During the logical swapping, is there anything specifically i should be aware of or
looking out for??

I hope what i want to do is clear enough....

thanks,
savagcl

 

I know with Maxtor's Maxblast software, it will let you copy a smaller drive to a larger drive. I haven't done this with a SATA drive, I have done it with a PATA (IDE) drive. I copied a 15GB drive to a 20GB drive (warranty replacement). If I remember correctly, it copied everything over fine.

HOWEVER - Sometimes cloning a drive gives XP fits. I found out you can only get away with copying or cloning a partition once. If you clone the clone, XP has fits.

Symantec's (Norton) Ghost works well for this too. I have used both, and while Maxblast is cheaper (comes with new drives), Ghost works better for me.

 

Clif,

Instead of using the 'image', use the 'Disk Cloning' tool in TruImage. It will copy your old hard drive to the new then set it as the 'boot' drive. Disconnect the old drive and boot the new one, you should then be able to format and partition the unallocated space on the new drive (or merge it with an existing partition). After you are sure your new drive boots properly, reconnect the old hard drive and reformat and partition as needed. Check the TruImage help file, it should give you any need additional information. Have fun

B

 

The Disk clone option (in TI 8.0) works fine. I cloned an XP install from a 4.3GB drive to a 6GB drive. All I did was install the newer 6GB drive as a slave to the existing (OS/4.3GB) drive. Formatted it using NTFS. Used Acronis TI 8.0.xxx to clone the existing OS over to it. Shutdown the PC. Unplugged the data cable from the Old (4.3GB) master drive, jumpered the cloned drive as the new master, then booted up. The OS loaded without a hitch, detecting the new drive as it went. After a couple of reboots to make sure she booted fine, I then installed the old drive as a slave to the new master, booted up, waited for XP to properly install the old drive, then went into My Computer and deleted all data from the old drive. You could also select the format function by right clicking this drive icon or even boot from the XP CD and select this drive to reformat it. I did everything (including the reformat) from within windows without any hitches.

 

Using Western Digital software I copied a 40gig ( partitioned C-H ) HD to an 80 gig HD.

All was done in DOS.

Win98 never knew the difference other than size. ( AFTER I remembered to change the jumper that is )

BillyBob

 

Mr. B, Paul,

thanks for the info. Never used the cloning tool yet. Looks like a good chance
to learn something
I'll take your advice, and post results here.

thanks again, guys,
savagcl

 

Looks like it worked. I'm on line with the new HD as Drive C:

You know, I've gotten more fast and much more accurate answers from this
site than any other forums i frequent.

I think the old drive was going out - started seeing some "write delay errors"
from it.

thanks again,
savagcl

 

Good that you're up and running Clif.
I find Acronis TI a great programme, that's easy to use, and works!