Windows XP Transfer Copy Windows XP To Another Hard Disk or System Tech Support Tip
By Raymond Garcia
WebTechGeek.com
How to Copy Transfer, Windows XP Transfer Windows XP To Another Hard Disk or System Tech Support Windows XP.
With operating system as large and power-hungry as Windows XP, it shouldn't be surprising that many users will need to upgrade their hard drive or even their entire Windows XP systems.
Either way, some or all of the files on the old hard disk will need to be transferred to the new hard drive, and this can be a difficult task. Sure, you can simply install Windows XP from scratch and then proceed to reinstall all your applications, configure all your settings, and rewrite all your documents, but that's not exactly the most practical solution. Besides, your Freecell statistics would be lost forever.
You can transfer the data from one drive to another (or one system to another) in any of several ways, explained in the following solutions. The one you choose depends on your available hardware and your specific needs. If you have just purchased a new hard disk, you'll need to prepare the disk by partitioning and formatting it before you continue.
Using a disk-cloning utility software:
The following procedure is probably the most pain-free solution of those in this section, at least in terms of the amount of interaction and work involved. However, you will need to crack open your case and fuss with cables (something you'll have to do anyway if you're only upgrading your hard disk, versus the entire system). Also, it requires that you purchase a third-party utility, although the aggravation and time it saves can offset the cost (even if you only use it this once). Note also that any data on the new hard disk will be lost as it is replaced with the data on the old disk:
1. First you need to obtain a disk-cloning utility software. Examples include Norton Ghost , DriveImage XML and Ultimate Boot CD software, . If you purchased the product online and have only the downloadable edition, you may have to create a bootable diskette or CD as described in the documentation included with the product you're using.
2. Connect both your old hard disk and your new hard disk to the same computer simultaneously. If you're upgrading to a new system, it usually doesn't matter which computer you use for this process. However, drive configurations in the following list are usually required by this type of utility.
* If you're using IDE drives, the old hard disk should be connected as "master" and the new hard disk should be connected as "slave" or use cable select on both drives.
* If you're using SCSI drives, configure the SCSI controller BIOS to boot off the old drive.
* If you're using one IDE and one SCSI drive, the configuration shouldn't matter.
3. If your Motherboard hard drive controller cable doesn't have enough free ports, you can temporarily disconnect a CD/DVD ROM drive or other storage device to make room for the new drive (temporarily.)
4. Insert the boot disk from the disk-cloning utility software you're using and boot your computer. Some disk-cloning software will lit you copy drive to drive in Windows XP without having to use a boot disk or CD. The program should start up and walk you through the rest of the process. Just be careful when choosing the "from" and "to" drives.
While this may sounds complicated, it's actually quite fast, as data will transfer between two hard disks on the same system is much faster than over a network or using removable media.
The particular procedure depends from this point depends on the type of disk cloning utility you chose. There are typically two types:
* The more traditional disk cloning programs simply copy all data on one drive, byte-for-byte, to another drive. Any partitions (discussed later in this chapter) are duplicated as well but are expanded proportionally. For example, if you have a 10-GB drive with two 5-GB partitions, and you transfer the data to a 60-GB drive, you'll end with two 30-GB partitions (which can later be combined, if desired, with the solutions found later in this chapter.
* Newer "image" utilities take a slightly different approach. Instead of copying data between drives, these programs start by creating an image of the old drive, which is essentially a single, enormous file that contains every byte of data on the drive. The new drive is then reconstructed from the image.
* The problem with this intermediate step is that you need somewhere to store this image file. If you're creating an image of a 20-GB drive with 18 GB of data on it, there will only be 2 GB of free space, which won't be enough to store an 18-GB image file. Since you won't be able to store the image file on the target (new) disk, you'll actually need a third hard disk to hold the image.
Part 2 Transferring Data Manually
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