Resolved HDD and partitions

I plan on copying my entire HDD to a bigger HDD. I have tried this before but could not figure out how to get extra room on new HDD to be used by OS. How do i get the OS to use the extra room or how do i add it to partition i already have setup? Machine is Dell XPS 720 with XP SP3 OS, 8600GTS vid card, 250G HDD now (future is 500G HDD), 8G ram. Used basically to run old games and i have a lot of them. Old games don't like W7 even with XP simulator; they won't work. So i keep my XP, but need a lot more space as i can run a lot of newer games on it too. I am not anywhere close to being an expert, so simple is the best LOL. Please help

 

Is the new HD formatted Fat or NTFS? NTFS is the way to go and use some free cloning software to move stuff over to it.

 

Clone the 250 to the 500, then use disk manager to expand the partition from 250 to 500.

 

Have a device which copies all info from one HDD to the other HDD. So once it is cloned to new one i can use disk manager to expand it? Ok i will try that and see what happens.Thank you both for your help. Now i just need find the resolved button hehe

 

Yes, you're welcome, and click the "Thread Tools" link at the top right of your original post.