Comments for Can I move Windows from one hard drive to another?

Comment from Eric on 2008-10-25

2008-10-25T22:00:29Z

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?

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Comment from christopher on 2008-10-21

2008-10-22T02:28:31Z

I would suggest that you use the norton ghost software.. It will surely solve your problem... It doesn't matter if you transfer all files to a bigger hard drive or a smaller hard drive. As long as the data fits in the drive, it will work... Good Luck!

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Comment from Sersoft on 2008-10-08

2008-10-09T06:02:34Z

It's possible to move a windows installation onto another drive and boot off the copied version, but not in your case, because you're obviously still booting off your old drive, then the bootloader is set up to load windows the files from the new hard drive. I've been in this situation before and it can be very frustrating.

But if you're reading this and only have one hard drive with windows on it, then read on.

I have copied my windows installation before, it's not that hard to do. You might need to delete some entries from the registry to avoid problems, but that's it.

Then you just use your favorite hard drive cloning tool (I used the partitionmagic recovery floppy, it boots from DOS and has no problem copying an NTFS partition from one drive to another along with the boot sector).

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Comment from kk on 2008-10-04

2008-10-04T07:12:26Z

Hi Leo,
I have done my own research and have been able to "transplant" windows from one pc to the other without reinstalling. VMware uses the same trick for p2v conversion.
The trick is to somehow grab windows folder and copy it to the other machine and set boot.ini setting in boot file there.
I use sysinternals utility, but you can use bart pe, windows pe.
first somehow make driver backup of the source machine using driver backup utility.
then make a copy of windows folder using file sync or cd based booting such as bart pe.
if you make copy of windows while running windows using utility such as filesync, u cannot copy registry files. in that case copy registry file from the repair folder. to main system32\config folder
once you have system folder ready copy it to usb pen drive. also copy boot.ini to pen drive.
insert pen drive in target machine
now go to target machine, boot using boot cd such as bart pe, format the drive and make partition active, copy windows folder and boot.ini to the partition.
now remove the cd and try to boot the machine, chances are that it will boot, if it does not boot that means your storage controller in target machine is different. in that case you need to edit registry file for different storage controller, there are two types of storage controllers so there is 50% chance that u will not need to do this. There is an msdn article on this issue, i can send it later.
now when it boots it will not find documents and settings folder, it will complain but will creates them.
alternately you can copy documents and settings folder too.
later you can copy display, network and sound driver should the hardware be different.

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Comment from Sherry Jolly on 2008-05-14

2008-05-15T03:55:43Z

Leo,
I added a 2nd hard drive for more space. My original drive is almost full and I am unsure of how to move files to the new drive. I'm not a computer Guru so is there a simple way to move like music files, for instance, to the new drive and if so, what will need to be changed or reset to be able to access them on the new drive. I'm very illiterate about how this works. It's a Dell PC. I know if I download anything new I need to choose the new drive to put it on, but don't know how to get to these files if I do that, especially my music. Can you help me?

Thanks for your time.

Sherry

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Comment from ByteGuy on 2008-05-04

2008-05-04T22:15:17Z

My Win XP Pro 64 bit is on the only hard drive and it's labeled J:.
I have tried changing the drive letter to c: but it won't let me.
I was wondering if I install another hard drive and give it the c: drive letter,
and move Win XP to the c:drive from the j: drive, will it work and boot the computer?

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Comment from joggen g on 2008-03-09

2008-03-10T06:15:29Z

hi, i have a very small 8 gig hard drive running as the main c drive with windows xp in it. i also have a 250 gig drive installed with a lot of stuff saved onto it. the c drive is very low on space and requires me to clean it up often after using the internet. how do i change the new 250 gig drive into the main drive for the computer for temorary internet files to save in and also so that i can have enough space to install macromedia studio?

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Comment from Patrick Bouster on 2008-01-18

2008-01-18T11:28:13Z

Hi,

I've done that many times with NT, 2000 and XP:
Boot on an other system than the one to copy otherwise some files cannot be copied (registries).
Copy system directory to new location including on other drive.
Edit boot.ini file to make an option to boot to the new directory.
Boot into the new system.
Set the drives letters like you want then reboot.
Edit the registry to replace every occurrence of old paths by the new ones. Repeat until no more is left.
Reboot. Now the older system should no longer be used. Backup the original system to be careful.
If you want , delete it. Reboot. Now you'll know if it's allright or not. Check system logs.

I can't remember of a problem arising after that method was applied and I've used it many times. But it can always happen with peculiar applications. Some Unix-fashioned applications may require you to edit their config files to substitute some paths. Anyway this is not a Windows issue.

As far as the aforementioned Windows are concerned, this method is reliable..

This explanation is given to the best of my knowledge but I don't give ANY garanty or liability about it and the one who uses this method is supposed to be knowledgeable in IT, understand that he may lose data, and assume his decision to try it.

Patrick Bouster

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Comment from bijith on 2007-12-05

2007-12-06T06:49:55Z

How do I move the pagefile.sys off c: to another drive

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Comment from Jopower on 2007-09-29

2007-09-29T23:19:26Z

2nd post on this subject from me:

From: http://windows.ittoolbox.com/documents/popular-q-and-a/moving-windows-xp-to-a-new-hard-disk-2263

[Copyrighted Material Removed, See Website Link]

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Comment from Jopower on 2007-09-29

2007-09-29T23:13:17Z

Concerning the original question, I found this:

From: http://www.futurehardware.in/63575.htm

Moving Win XP to new drive problem. Note more >>>'s mean older parts of thread.

[Copyrighted Material Removed, See Website Link]

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Comment from mel kurchal on 2007-09-03

2007-09-04T00:40:04Z

My hd is fried and wont boot to it. Error message
says it cant find it.
Can I install windows to an external hd after I change the boot order?

thanks Leo

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Comment from Christian Knudsen on 2007-08-29

2007-08-29T18:58:47Z

Ok - I've read through the article and comments, and am still somewhat confused.

Here is my situation. I have 2 physical drives, a 6 GB drive that is the primary (C:) drive, and which has Win XP on it. The 2nd is a 80 GB that is the slave, and is partitioned into 2 sections (D: [50GB] and E: [30GB]). Several months ago, in order to save space, I changed my windows documents/temp folders to the E: drive. This has worked well.

6 GB is not enough to house Win XP any longer, though. I recently replaced the MB/Proc/memory, and ended up (for some reason) having to reinstall Windows, again onto C:, and this is proving problematic to upgrade properly for lack of space - I have basically trimmed all non-essential files, and still am short.

So I want to move my OS onto the D: drive, but without really losing any info on any drive, as restoring backups is painful. I do not really want to change the partition scheme on the big drive unless I really have to, and/or it makes a LOT of sense to do so. What is the best course of action? I am to the point of considering buying a new (bigger) hard drive and just doing a clean install on to it, then manually transferring other files to it from the 6 GB, which will then be a F: drive, or just go in the bin. The down side to this is that my wife will kill me if I spend another penny on the computer...

Any ideas?

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Comment from ian on 2007-08-12

2007-08-12T12:15:11Z

howzit my name is ian ,i want know to can i move or copy my windows xp to another drive that is currently a slave driver cause the main one is only a 20gb and the slave driver is 160gb and there's not much space on the 20gb left

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Comment from don on 2006-12-04

2006-12-04T17:15:35Z

I had to replace my boot drive in my PC. For some reason after loading the OS, it is showing up as drive I instead of C. The system sees a memory card reader as drive C. How do I change this? The boot drive is configured as the Master.

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Comment from FRED on 2006-09-19

2006-09-19T23:50:46Z

can i move a working master hd with xp, to a new pc and use it as a master?

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Comment from Leo Notenboom on 2006-09-11

2006-09-11T19:05:17Z

It varies dramatically based on the application. By far the best approach is to reinstall.

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Comment from Clement on 2006-09-11

2006-09-11T08:18:53Z

Hi, Leo

my question that can you move applications from pc to onother, without re-installing them.

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Comment from PGT on 2006-05-06

2006-05-07T00:11:20Z

If Partition Magic, Norton Ghost or the HDD manufacturers programs dont work for you, try
[Acronis TrueImage 9].

I tried all of the above including most of the solutions already listed here to move Windows XP Pro from a 30Gb Quantum to a 160GB Western Digital with no success. Here's what happened and why I think TrueImage worked.

I started with Partition Magic, fantastic ap for joining, spliting and resizing partitions, as far as copying went i was left with blank partitions constantly so no joy there.

Next I tried Norton Ghost (Many, many tries). Whil norton would clone the drive, when I rebooted to the new, larger drive, windows would begin booting but would crash during the pale blue loading screen. After a lot of mucking around I booted back to the old hard drive and used the system explorer program that RobTillaart mentioned. Windows had become VERY confused and was running processes of the windows directory on both hard drives! After my second clone it must have transfered this to the new drive too. Eventually I figured out that the problem was assignment of the drive letter C: . I tried numerous ways to fix it, reassigned C to the new HDD before cloning and rebooting, still no joy.

After nearly tearing my hair out I decided to try another cloning program and came across TrueImage. It did the clone after rebooting windows on the old drive and just after it completed I noticed a line which said 'Reassigning Drive Letters'. I then unplugged the old HDD, booted to the new, and Viola! It worked. I'm not sure what TrueImage does but im assuming it reassigns the drive in the registry of the new version of windows before you reboot to it.

Either way, Im a very happy man now. If nothing else works for you, I'd strongly recommend giving

Acronis TrueImage 9

a try.

Good Luck.

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Comment from Anton on 2006-04-16

2006-04-16T21:22:31Z

It is not enough to do the partition copy. You also have to remap the drive letters. Windows XP/2003 assignes drives by name. you have to go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" and swap assignments from old drive to new one.
It IS DANGEROUS.
Best way is:
1) Save registry key
2) remap letters in registry (not only the "\DosDevices\", but the appropriate volumes, and the system drive.
3) Do system Backup.
4) replace SYSTEM hive on the new drive, with the one generated in "repair" folder.
5) restore registry key, so machine works.
6) shut down
7) swap physical drives
8) reboot.
- should work now. I did it 3 times.

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Comment from victor rodriguez on 2006-04-11

2006-04-11T19:51:12Z

OK THIS IS MY PROBLEM I HAVE A LOCAL DISK(C) AND LOCAL DISK(D) AND MY DRIVE (C) DON'T HAVE MORE MEMORY (SPACE) AND I WANT TO KNOW HOW CAN I DO.. ALSO I WANT TO KNOW HOW CAN I PUT THE LOCAL DISK(D) HAS LIKE THE (C) DRIVE.

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Comment from Karl on 2006-03-04

2006-03-04T12:26:04Z

Wayne, you shouldn't have any problems at all. If you are now using a store brand computer (Dell, HP, Gateway) then your bios is already configured to boot from the drive that the system came preloaded on. This means, when you plug in your old computer's system drive as a slave drive, your computer will boot fine. Your bios may say that it has detected multiple Operating Systems. Don't worry, let it time out and boot to default. Once booted, you should be able to get whatever you need from your old drive, assuming nothing was wrong with the drive in the first place.

Anyways, I hope this helps.

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Comment from Leo on 2006-02-24

2006-02-25T07:23:48Z

Well, your plan sounds sound to me. (Especially step #4 :-).

Good luck!

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Comment from wayne on 2006-02-24

2006-02-25T07:08:39Z

Hmm... I appreciate all your posts; very informative. However, my problem is that my old computer's motherboard fried, and I'm trying to get the old information from my old computer to my new computer. The old computer's HD has Windows XP Home installed, and the new is Windows XP Pro.
This is what I'm planning on doing.
1) connect old hd as slave to new computer.
2) hope and pray that my new computer recognizes it and can sneek into the HD to take the old information that I need.
3) remove said old hd, and install my old storage 80gb hd as the new slave (as it was in my old system), and keep my music, pictures, etc.
4) did I mention pray??
I can't clone the old HD, because the system is now dead.
Any guidance/help is appreciated!

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Comment from Sean on 2006-02-19

2006-02-19T08:46:05Z

well sysprep made my endevor a lot easier
and then its as simple as editing the boot.ini file to direct it to the folder containing the "ntldr" file usualy \windows

this is my boo.ini file

[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

to acces yours go to run type the letter of ur active partition then boot.ini like this "e:\boot.ini"

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Comment from Hip2u on 2005-12-19

2005-12-19T09:55:27Z

Simply use the software from the manufacture. It does work. I've tried them all.

Or, since I'm bored and tired, I'll explain the way I do it using Ghost and partition magic. This is going to be extrememly long winded. Sorry in advance.

Ok, Say you have a 80Gb in your system now, with 3 partitons. The first is the boot partition, the other 2 are just storage, and you want to move everything to a new 200Gb. Use Norton Ghost 2003.

Just install the new HD as a slave. Boot with a Ghost Boot Floppy, or CD, select "Local," then "Disk," then "To Disk."

Choose the old hard drive as the source, the new hard drive as the target, and it will copy the full disk, creating 3 partitions, onto the new drive. The last partition will have the extra 120Gb. Then just pull the old drive, install the new HD as the Master and reboot into the bios. Have it identify the new HD, reboot again and your done.

You can then use Partition Magic 8.0 to resize the partitions to best suite you.

On the other hand, say you have some data on the 200Gb already that you don't want to lose.

Here's a way to do that.

We'll say the 80gb is full, once again with 3 partitions. First, see how big the C: drive is on the old HD.

Then, use Partition Magic to create a partition 10Gb bigger (just to be safe) than the old C: drive, BEFORE the one that's on there now.

All your data should now be in the second partition, with an unused partition at the start of the drive. Use Windows to format the new partition. (right click on it from explorer and choose format. You might have turn off the recyle bin / or norton protection if you have SystemWorks installed.)

Once again, boot from Ghost, but this time choose "Local", then "Partiton", then "To Partiton" and it will show both HD's. Choose the 80gb. Then it will show all 3 partitons on the old hard drive. Choose #1, then point it to the SECOND hard drive, then the #1 partition on that drive. Remember to check the sizes to be sure you're selecting the right partitions / drives.

It will then copy the boot partition to the new HD. Once it's complete, power off and swap the drives. IE. Move the old one to slave, and the new one to master. (Don't worry about the old OS still being on the old drive.)

Make sure you go into the bios and have it find both drives again.

Now, once you reboot a couple times you'll have the new 200Gb as the master, with all your data that you wanted to keep still in a partiton on it, and you'll also see all 3 partitions from the old drive. Either leave it there as storage, or if you want to remove it, just copy everything you want to keep to the new hard drive. Then power down and remove it.

Also, if you followed this you now own Ghost. The next time you do a fresh install, or system restore for a OEM computer, go ahead and setup your email, install the programs you use on a normal basis. IE Winzip, Winamp, Office, or whatever and don't forget to do all windows / software updates. Once you've done that use Ghost to create an "image" of your Boot partiton.

Boot from Ghost, select Local, then partition, then "To image" and point it at the first HD as the source, and at the first partition.

Then select the SECOND partition, or the old HD as the target. Give it a name, and it will then create a full image of your boot partition. So, the next time you get a virus, or have to do a fresh install just boot from Ghost, choose Local, then Partiton, then "FROM image." Point it to the first partition on the main HD, and then to the image file and less than an hour later your fully up and running again, with everything installed, updated, etc. No more 8 hour nights reinstalling everything.

Anyway, Sorry for the grammar errors. It's way too late, and I'm way to tired to care about them. I might have a few steps mixed up but it's really easy to figure out. Just remember Disk = the full hard drive, and partition = just that... a single partition.

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Comment from E on 2005-12-16

2005-12-16T21:16:21Z

i remember copying contents of 1 drive to another back in 98 wasn't too hard. copy everything except Windows dir, then make a Windows dir on the 2nd hdd and copy everything in the Windows dir over except the swap file. sys the new drive, shut down, change the master/slave settings, and boot on up.

it's probably equally simple for win2k/winxp, but 'm not sure which files are "unmovable". ntuser.dat in the Documents & Settings dir seems to be one of 'em... anyone got a list?

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Comment from roscojones on 2005-11-25

2005-11-25T22:19:47Z

Thanks for the Casper XP tip.
Just what I was looking for.

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Comment from Tony on 2005-10-23

2005-10-24T05:52:42Z

Not too bad for a 16 year old, considering i asked 3 or 4 people that consider themselves pros in the computer field and also searched all over the net to try to find a solution. I hope that this helps someone, Thanks Tony

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Comment from Tony on 2005-10-23

2005-10-24T05:49:25Z

Well, Ive come across, (after manyhours of attempting to derive a way to move my copy of windows XP home to a newer pc, and also on a different hard drive) a way to succede and get the disk to auctually boot. First, Ill address the problem. XP wouldnt boot on the new pc, using the new harddrive, or the old one for that matter. OK now heres what I did, I found a program called Casper XP, great utility to copy a hdd or create partitions and such. I used that on the old pc to copy the old hdd to the new hdd by connecting the new hdd as a slave. After i copied it, I tested it on the old pc, it worked fine. But when i switched it to the new pc, it wouldnt boot. Scratched my head for bout 4 hours and finally thought "well, the pc aint booting most likly cause the motherboard dont recognize or cant find the right drivers" so, I hooked the new hdd back to the old pc, booted it, went to device manager and deleted all of the system componets. Thus the new pc wouldnt try to load them, it would use the default settings and bios of the new machine. I hooked it up and EUREKA ! it worked!

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Comment from Leo on 2005-10-20

2005-10-21T04:03:25Z

In your shoes I would probably copy all of C: to a subdirectory on D:, and then reformat C: and reinstall Windows on C:.

"Moving" WIndows to the second drive in order to boot from that drive, while preserving everything already on that drive also, will likely not work.

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Comment from Chello on 2005-10-20

2005-10-20T19:12:49Z

I appear to have a similar problem. My PC is running really slow - i have done everything possible (in my capabilities) to remedy this by removing programs i dont use a lot, getting rid of my strange named things (cant remember what they are called :/) in my windows file and turned off system restore. However, I do have 2 hard drives and would want to move everything from my normal c: drive to my d: as that drive has a vast amount of space. Is this something that i can do, like just moving files without the aid of norton ghost 9.0? (my pc doesnt seem to like it). I am kinda hoping that this can be remedied simply as i am not technically minded.

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Comment from rob tillaart on 2005-09-01

2005-09-02T06:12:47Z

Hi,

I have done it yesterday with Win XP SP2, so it's possible but it took me ~20 hours to find out why just cloning the partition didn't work correctly. The recipe below did work for my PC and I expect it will work for others too but use it at your own risk :)
If reinstalling the OS from scratch is a valid option for you do that instead of cloning as you get rid of unused files/programs/accounts.

steps taken:
0) Backup all relevant data (user accounts)
1) Add second disk with a partition for windows. 2) Make the disk basic primary and bootable
3) Make the partition active.
4) Format the partition (alloc bad sectors)
- do NOT assign a drive letter
- do NOT label it
5) Clone the windows partition to the new disk
6) Remove both disks
7) Make 2nd disk the master, 1st disk slave
8) Put disks back (I had to switch them as I poked my bios settings too much)
9) Reboot, the new disk is now the windows disk
[optionally you need to patch boot.ini]

So far as tested all applications run well.

Most important 'learning' steps:
Biggest error was assigning of a drive letter to the new partition on the 2nd disk. In one of the first tries I rebooted with only the second disk,
no succes.
Tried to fix it by adding the first disk (patched nboot.ini so I could boot from the second disk)and rebooted again. XP started and I logged on. The process explorer from www.sysinternals.com (great tools) showed me that XP was running from disk F: but part of the processes/services we started from the original C: disk. Explained a lot!

Rebooted with only the new disk and tried to repair the partition with help of the original XP boot CD. This improves things a lot but not enough, the drive was still F: and none of the installed programms had the right path not to mention the registry :)
I understood the problem now, the 2nd disk must be assigned C: so I put in the 1st disk again and booted, formatted again but I was unable to assign it the letter C: as this was in use allready and the system drive letter could not be removed or changed. This left me the only choice to delete the driveletter completely and let the OS assign it automatically at boottime. And then it started to work again (finally).

So far my 2 cents,
rob

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Comment from Leo on 2005-08-26

2005-08-27T02:56:46Z

I would simply mount both drives and xcopy the contents across myself. Is there something preventing you from doing that?

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Comment from Snug on 2005-08-24

2005-08-25T02:52:40Z

Does anybody know how to copy a WinXP NTFS Primary Partition to a WinXP Dynamic Raid 1 partition? Note: all the utility programs I've come across (eg Partition Magic) fail to work with Dynamic Volumes!

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Comment from Leo on 2005-06-24

2005-06-24T15:58:22Z

There's no single answer - it's going to depend entirely on the programs themselves. Some will work just by copying whatever you find under their directory in "c;\program files" to the same location on the other machine. Many will not work because they really REALLY require that their setup program be run to initialize their settings in the system registry and elsewhere. So if you don't have the setup disks for those you'll be kinda screwed.

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Comment from iceman on 2005-06-23

2005-06-23T18:15:15Z

Here's an issue I've never seen addressed and I don't know if it's possible. I have a computer running NT 4.0. Bought a new Dell with XP Professional. I need to get software from the NT 4.0 machine to the XP Professional machine so that it'll function. Here's the dilemma. I don't have the installation discs that originally came with the software. There is no way to get the installation discs that came with the software. Is there any way to get this program on to the XP Professional Machine without cloning the old drive and doing an upgrade? I sincerely hope so.

Thank you for you help.

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Comment from Jason on 2005-06-23

2005-06-23T12:47:06Z

I think the best way to do this is to boot from a linux cd (make sure all the utilities you need are on it) and then use DD to tranfer the drive to one to the other. It should work =)

http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints/os_clone/os_cloning.html

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Comment from Rory on 2005-04-28

2005-04-28T07:37:44Z

lol im 12 so bear with me...Ive got two drives c: and D: my D has 1 gig..lol and my c 26...my d is my home drive and it has no space left. everytime i try to install to c instead of D it tells me tht C is full and its has 10 gig left.can anyone help me

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Comment from Roberto on 2005-04-22

2005-04-22T23:24:39Z

I had the exact same problem (1 disk, 2 partitions, the system primary partition, drive C was nearly full). I moved the pagefile.sys out to the larger drive D. You need to use Control Panel > System > Advanced > Performance. Click on Settings, then on the Advanced Tab. Click on the Change button at the bottom. Select No paging file on C:, select the larger drive and recreate the paging file with 574MB or more. That gave me plenty of room for now.

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Comment from Louis on 2005-04-07

2005-04-07T19:15:31Z

Yes, you can.
Use Norton Ghost 9.0

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Comment from kordian on 2005-04-05

2005-04-06T05:09:23Z

Not a single piece of advice placed here works! I used Seagate software to Ghost, and physically swapped drives, and it DOESN'T work because the WINDOWS dir is in use while backing up. You must first remove your C: and copy to a different hard drive on a second PC.

Also it seems like nobody here understands the need to copy an operating system. Ghosting takes half hour, reinstalling everything from scratch may take 20 hours. At $50/hr that's a big reason - that is if the user values his time in any way. Obviously nobody does on this page.

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Comment from April on 2005-02-16

2005-02-16T23:54:44Z

I have a similar issue. Recently upgraded to 80 gig the tech partitioned to C and D drives making C smaller Now everything I install will not allow me to add it to D so it is all on C Is there a way WITHOUT reformatting or losing what I have installed already to make C bigger and leaving D smaller.
I prefer a free program is possible or one with a trial as I can not really afford to buy more after spending that 220 I just spent
THANKS for any help anyone can provide
It is a Samsung Hard drive if that helps by the way The machine is running XP with SP1 have not added SP2 yet as I hate to keep adding If in the end a reformatting is what will have to happen
THANKS
April

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Comment from Jon on 2005-01-23

2005-01-23T20:51:38Z

All major hard drive manufacturers (Maxtor, Seagate, Western Digital, etc.)provide a free download program at their website to move all content (programs and files) from one hard drive to another. Check the make of HDD you have and download from the appropriate mfgr.
I used DiscWizard from Seagate to transfer everything from Maxtor 20Gb to Seagate 120Gb, partition C, 50Gb.

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Comment from Alex on 2004-12-08

2004-12-08T22:03:11Z

I have similar issue as above comments and have read them.

Have a question? Re: "'Ghost' the image of your small disk onto your new larger disk. Then physically switch your big drive to the the active boot disk and wipe the small drive (and use it for your page file).
HOW TO PERFORM THIS "GHOST" FUNCTION?

Thank You.

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Comment from Karl Russell on 2004-12-08

2004-12-08T20:11:06Z

I have run into the same situation (basically). I am upgrading from a small primary hard drive with a large secondary which has become full. Now I need to transfer the operating system Windows 98 to a larger hard drive to use as the primary and not loose all of the files that are currently on the "C" drive (Primary). I can remove the drive from the secondary and install my new large drive but now how do you transfer operating system to the new drive so I can scrap the old hard drive then reinstall my old large drive with all of my working files?

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Comment from pam aka nonee on 2004-11-06

2004-11-06T16:28:47Z

i'm just a mom with a laptop that has a c and d drive. the c drive is full and the d drive is empty. is there any way to move stuff over without screwing up my machine. i am waiting for a liver transplant and bedridden most of the time, so this machine is my life line.
i have a nice dvd copy program but i can't run it because it says there is not enough free space on the disk, yet the other one is empty. :0
thanks. i love you computer nerds. i am learning all the time.... xo

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Comment from Chastity Benefits on 2004-09-15

2004-09-15T12:14:18Z

An option not considered before the switch would have been to 'Ghost' the image of your small disk onto your new larger disk. Then physically switch your big drive to the the active boot disk and wipe the small drive (and use it for your page file).

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