Copying to a new HDD

I currently have 2 Hard Drives

1. Western Digital C:\ "Windows XP Home Edition SP2" 40GB

2. Maxtor F:\ "Windows 2000 Professinal" 1.51 GB

i just got this "Seagate 8.4 GB" drive and i wanna copy everything from the Maxtor onto this Seagate and use the seagate because it's way bigger.

How can i do this without losing any information?

 

You could swap your current XP drive for the new drive and then use one of the cloning tools on this bootable CD. http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Or connect the new drive up as a third hard drive in your computer and then run this program in your XP install. http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

I’ve never used any of the above myself so can’t help with the details. I prefer these myself http://www.paragon-gmbh.com but they’re not free.

 

Hello pontiaclover,

You should take Steve's suggestion and get Norton Ghost or some drive imaging software, most have drive cloning capability which is the specific feature you need now.

Drive imaging is pretty much the ultimate backup tool and you'll use it (or should) on a regular basis to avoid disasters.

Regards - Charles

 

Icopyed the files twice but i still can't seem to login now. Everytime i do, it just does this

Loading Settings...
Apply Settings...


...

Saving settings...

Then back to logon screen where it just keeps doing this everytime i log in.

 

A few more details would be useful pontiaclover.
I’m assuming you have cloned 2K to the new drive and you’re now getting the ‘Applying Setting’ loop?

Are you using the Windows own bootmanager to select which OS to boot?
Is your hard drive setup the same after cloning - just that the new drive is in place of the old 2K hard drive?
Did you have only one partition on the old drive?
Was the paging file in 2K on a different partition or hard drive?
How did you copy the drive?

 

Is your hard drive setup the same after cloning - just that the new drive is in place of the old 2K hard drive?

Yes.

Did you have only one partition on the old drive?

Yes.

Was the paging file in 2K on a different partition or hard drive?

Nope.

How did you copy the drive?

Norton Ghost 9.0
Copy one driver to another for larger drives.

And yes i am getting that applying loop.

 

Ok, nothing there then that helps.
What’s your setup – the XP hard drive as the Primary Master with the 2K drive as either slave on the primary channel or as master/slave on the secondary IDE channel.

When booted into either OS does the 2K install always show as the F: drive?

How are you selecting which one to boot? Did you just let Windows set up its own bootmanager and so you get a black screen with just the two boot options.

Are you sure about the pagefile? Do you know how to check where it actually is?

What are the Volume Labels of both your XP and 2K installs? You will see the volume label next to the drive letter in My Computer, if you have never assigned a volume label it will typically say (Local Disk)

 

What’s your setup "“ the XP hard drive as the Primary Master with the 2K drive as either slave on the primary channel or as master/slave on the secondary IDE channel.

PrimaryIDE(Both)
WindowsXP - Master
Windows2000 - Slave

When booted into either OS does the 2K install always show as the F: drive?

In WindowsXP it is F:\
In Windows2000 it is C:\

How are you selecting which one to boot? Did you just let Windows set up its own bootmanager and so you get a black screen with just the two boot options.

No i edited the Boot.ini file myself,i made WindowsXP the default with 30 seconds to choose. Right now i have the old drive back in and it booted fine and loged in so it's something on the cloned drive.

Are you sure about the pagefile? Do you know how to check where it actually is?

The "pagefile.sys' is in C:\pagefile.sys

What are the Volume Labels of both your XP and 2K installs? You will see the volume label next to the drive letter in My Computer, if you have never assigned a volume label it will typically say (Local Disk)

WindowsXP - Western Digital Drive
Windows2000 - Local Disk

 

So you installed 2K to the hard drive when it was Primary Master and then moved it to slave and edited the boot.ini in XP to add 2K as a boot option? That’s good as it helps that 2K sees itself as the C: drive.

Boot into 2K and give it a new volume label. Right click on the drive icon and choose rename. (this must be done from inside 2K, don’t do it from XP or any other way).

Then open the pagefile editing box and check that the new label is showing next to the C: drive. (Right-click on My Computer >Properties>Advanced>Performance Options…>Change) Also check that none of the other drive letters that are there have any pagefile allocated to them. If any do then empty the size boxes and click Set. Reboot and check these settings have stuck.

Then try cloning the drive again.

 

Thank you very much, this did work and now i am typing from the bigger cloned hard drive.

 

You're Welcome, I'm just glad I correctly figured out the problem.