I bought a new internal HD, moving from 80 to 350GB, how can I put all the information on the old one onto the new one? I want to wipe the 80GB clean to use it in a case (external case I bought just for that) for my sister, so any advice on the best way to wipe it clean* would also be helpful.
Thanks!
*No need for level 10000 cleaning government control style, nothing more than possibly a re-format would do, but not sure if that would do it and not expose my young sister to some erm yah ummm adult related material. :eek:
Well… assuming you’re doing a clean install on the new one ((highly recommended) just set he 80 gig unit as a slave (using jumpers on rear of drive) after you’ve partitioned and formatted the 350 unit and installed the OS and programs you desire on the 350 master. Then copy over what you need. There should be two connectors on a standard IDE cable. Use either one. If the new drive uses an SATA cable, disconnect the CD_DVD drive temporary and use that one for the slave 80 gig unit.
After transferring the data just use windows explorer to right click on the 80 gig slave drive and format it.
If you don’t want to do a clean install, you’ll need a program like Disk Director, which can move and resize partitions. You’ll still have to put both drives in the machine (either internally, or in your new case) in order to do it.
Then follow the directions for your app to copy the partition to the new drive, and give the new drive the old drive’s letter (probably C:). Use the boot disk that comes with Disk Directory (or whatever partitioning software you choose) – never boot into Windows during this process. You can either leave the paritition as an 80 GB partition on a 350 GB drive (in which case you’ll have some free space you can make other disks in later), or resize it to be a 350 GB partition. I’d do the latter – there’s not much reason to parition large drives these days, and you occasionally want to store a very large file.
Then take the old drive out and reboot. With luck, Windows will recognize the new drive as the old drive, and you’ll be golden.
If it doesn’t (there are a variety of reasons why this could happen), use the same partition management program to make a second partition on the drive (make the original one smaller if you need to), and re-install Windows on the new partition. It’s not as transparent a move, but you’ll still have all your software on the other drive.
Once you’re happy, and have confirmed that your data has moved, use the parition management program to erase the 80 GB. Delete the existing partition on the 80, and make a new one that’s very slightly different in size (79/81 or whatever). That will pretty well destroy the data on the previous partition as far as a casual recovery effort will go.
I’ve found that every time I upgrade my machine, hard drive sizes have grown to the extent that I can (x)copy more or less the entire contents of the old drive into a folder on the new drive, without even noticing the space it occupies - I call the folder '‘Old System’ and the one on this machine also happens to include as a subfolder the ‘Old System’ folder that I created during the previous move.
I copy everything using the method astro describes - I do tidy it up afterwards, by deleting stuff I know I won’t or cannot use (such as most of the things in the Old System\Program Files folder).
Alright I understand all of that except the “clean install” and if that’s what you would recommend than that’s what I shall do. And the normal reformat will work in deleting everything, if I am reading you correctly right?
Wow, sorry I missed a bunch of replies. Thanks for helping me out on this. I actually bought this new drive back in early December and didn’t want to lose the literal $1000’s in programs I have bought through the last few years on this machines HD. But now I am pushing the limits of space, and I must.
I really really wish Microsoft had a way of ‘transplanting’ a running system, complete with installed apps, from one drive to another.
You can copy the entire contents of the old drive to directory on the new drive as Mangetout describes, but that does nothing to integrate the contents of the old drive, such as programs or registry, to the new system or anything.
You can create a bit-for-bit image of the old drive and write the image to the new drive, but does that not simply result in a partition of the same size on the new drive with unallocated space around it? Can you then extend the partition into the unallocated space?
Does the pre-existing partitioning of the new drive have to be adjusted for the disk image that is about to be written to it, or can one start with a completely-blank drive of larger capacity, write the image of the old drive, and be left with one working partition?
A “clean install” is where you install the OS and any applications you desire onto a new drive using the install CDs instead of simply using cloning software (like Norton Ghost) to copy the entire old drive OS, programs and all data onto the new one. The clean install method clears out a lot of the registry underbrush that XP tends to accumulate over time, and which often hampers performance and stability.
Once your OS and programs are re-installed you simply copy over your applications and other data to the desired locations. If you want to go by the clone method most bare drives (like yours) have formatting and partitions CD software that have some sort of copying program to accomplish this.
Great, that’s what I will do then. How long do you suppose this will take? I have a AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.2GHz and 2GB RAM if any of that matters? And more importantly to me, can I start the clean install, leave and come back to a new HD and only have to transfer my old stuff to the new one or will I have to sit there the whole time clicking buttons?