Summary: While moving Windows from one hard drive to another is theoretically possible, it's likely to have issues and is not recommended.
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I added a larger hard drive to my PC (now I have 2). I also upgraded from XP Home to XP Pro. But the Home is on the original drive and the Pro is on the new drive. I don't know how this happened this way. Is there anyway to get the Pro version off the new drive and over to the original drive without having to reformat the drives? |
My first concern would be why the situation arose in the first place. There are approaches to moving the operating system, but my advice is not to.
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When you add a hard drive, it's usually designated in the BIOS as primary or secondary. Primary is of course, the boot drive, and is where Windows expects to be installed. Typically when you install a second drive it will be the secondary, and not participate in the boot process at all.
If your new drive had been installed as primary by mistake, I would have expected your first reboot thereafter to fail, because the new drive would not have an operating system on it. Unless, perhaps, your BIOS is smart enough to check all drives.
When you install Windows, it will also present you with an opportunity to upgrade in existing installation or set up a new one. In the latter case, you could certainly have selected the new drive.
But the bottom line is that why it installed on the new drive may impact the success of the suggestions to follow.
Moving an existing installation of Windows is theoretically possible, but I would consider it risky. I'd expect it would be easy for many things to go wrong, putting you back where you started, or worse.
So the ultimate answer to your question is no, I would not recommend attempting to move the operating system.
In your shoes I would try one thing: swapping the hard drives. I started by pointing out that the drives are primary and secondary, and it's apparently installed the new operating system on the wrong drive. Make that drive the primary, and see if that results in what you want. Exactly how to do this will vary on your motherboard, your bios, and your drive types. And ultimately, it may not work. Depending on the exact configuration you ended up with, I can think of several issues that might invalidate this attempt.
That brings me to what I'd expect to be required: reinstall. Or rather, re-upgrade, making sure that the upgrade happens to the drive you expect. I might even go so far as to remove the second drive, perform the upgrade, make sure it's all working and then re-install the new drive, and make sure that you're still booting form the old one with the properly upgraded operating system.
Article C2183 - September 8, 2004
I don't think Leo really answered the question. Instead, he said don't do it.
Sometimes, it just needs to be done. I need to do it now. Here's my peculiar problem:
I had a BDC that had to have the Win2K Server OS reinstalled. Unfortunately, we reinstalled the BDC, we installed the OS on a 8GB hard drive that's 6 years old. Ooops.
Leo's solution would be to install the BDC on the correct hard drive and re-do everything. The problem here is that the BDC is not on the same local network as the PDC which means that we'd have to physically move the server to the location of the PDC this means loads of money and time.
Enter Norton Ghost... Norton Ghost will accomplish the task for us moving the Win2K server to the 80 GB hard drive, but alas it costs $ 70 + tax. IS there another solution?
I think so. I just can't find it from Leo because he's too busy telling us not to put ourselves in this situation. Your right Leo. We shouldn't have been here. But we are. Now we are looking for a solution to get out of the problem without having to buy Norton Ghost. So instead of just telling us no, how about offering us some real solutions?
Posted by: Eric at October 25, 2008 3:00 PMi just got a new motherboard. i would like to no how to add a hard drive that allready has windows XP on it with out haveing to Reinstall there not the same brand board but thay are boath PC's iv ben wondering how to do this for a long time an would help me out a lot thanks
Posted by: Larry at December 14, 2008 10:35 PMI have a 300gig hard drive with xp pro Ran great for 3yrs not troubles. Then installed explorer 8 beta goes to reboot and from then on I could no longer get it to boot to windows I tried every option under F8 and got it to boot to safe mode command prompt So I tried to do a system restore from command prompt C:\windows\system32\restore\rstrui hit enter & nothing happened. So tried the xp cd to do a repair windows install that didnt work so Her's what I did I changed jumper on 300gig hd to slave and used same xp pro cd and installed windows on a 60 gig hd in hopes I could somehow now be able to transfer/replace/repair the windows on my 300gig hd so it will boot up again then I can do a system restore and get it back to how it was b4 became unbootable. or leave it as is If I can get it bootable again. Like I said for 3yrs never had any serious problems that system restore never corrected. I have so many programs installed aswell as links and info that would be hard if not impossible to retrieve like activation codes usernames & passwords to sites saved in my favorites where user name and PW were remembered for them Not to mention all the programs that were current with drivers/codecs etc.. only some will run correctly now that the drive is slaved so please in Step by step instructions can some one help me and tell me exactly what files I need to transfer/replace etc.. on my old primary 300gig hd where windows became unbootable which is now slaved to a 60gig hd with exact same xp pro installed on it. So I can unslave it and be able to boot to windows again. Or would this be easier now that I can access my Old main HD now that its slaved isnt there a folder/files or backup that I could just copy n paste edit/replace then unslave my hd make it master again would be able to boot back up like normal? If so please help with which files/directories/folders and step by step on how to. Thank you in advance for your generousity and for sharing your knowlege,help,time spent aiding me with this problem
Posted by: Richard at December 25, 2008 12:10 AMEric - 25 Oct 2008 - $70 + tax versus moving an entire server between locations!
Posted by: ppwok at February 26, 2009 1:42 AMI hope in the end you paid the money and bought the software!
I would like 2 know how to move my music from my 'c' drive to my 'g' drive in the same pc & still keep all my ratings. playlists.
Posted by: Fred Steffens at April 1, 2009 7:24 AMI have a Seagate Barracuda ATA V hard drive which I removed from a discarded PC. Besides having Windows XP Pro installed on it this HD contains some important files I would very much like to recover if possible. First of all, can I installl this HD on my new PC (a Core 2 with MS XP PRO) as a second HD and directly access those files? I am familiar with installing a second HD in the bay and hooking up the cables but from there on I sure could use some advice on getting this to work for me. Thanks for any help you can provide.
16-Apr-2009
There is a DOS utility that will clone a drive for you (clone the old one onto the new one) then you can wipe the old one and use it for storage. The comand is something like d:f *.* FKHR or something like that...been about 8 years since I needed to use it.
Posted by: Nahdogg at April 20, 2009 7:56 PMNo need to use DOS utilities - DOS frightens most people these days and if you're at the level of not being sure how to clone a hard drive, I'd respectfully suggest you wouldn't be able to handle a DOS (no graphical user interface) application.
Posted by: David at April 28, 2009 6:34 PMI don't know about every manufacturer but Seagate have a wonderful FREE cloning tool on their website called DiscWizard - it's literally foolproof and actually works.
Also on their website check this article http://tinyurl.com/c5cp23.
It's all pretty safe and easy if you follow the instructions.
ok iv got a dell intel mini, with only 8GB, and an external Seagate HD 1TB. i would like to make the external HD as my main partition (C:) boot drive because.. well it has alot more space, should i just install XP OS on the external drive and change the letter? or is there somthing else i need to do?
Posted by: yonyc at May 2, 2009 3:06 AMI have a "c" and "d" drive. The D drive is where all the computer stuff is that will allow me to take it back to factory settings ect. Unfortunatley I can't gget into it to change the amount of space it needs. The C drive is where all my programs ect are.Te D drive is proected and I havnt figued out how to unprotect it as of yet. Oh I have XP, HP. And HP tells me it is there to protect it from me. lolol
Posted by: anthony at July 2, 2009 3:32 AM[link removed]