Migrate harddrive

Hello, I'm looking for advice on upgrading to a larger HD. I simply want to
copy the op sys and all files on my current drive to a larger one in the
easiest, most efficient and Sure way. I tried a copy utility but the new
drive would not boot even though it seemed all the files were there. Could'nt figure why. Decided to not waste more time and just ask the best.
I'm running XP home ed w/ SP2

thanks in advance,
Mike

 

The best way to copy, I found was to use the manufacturers own tools - Maxtor, and seagate have the facility, and I believe most others , too.
Otherwise, you could try to fix the boot in the new hard drive, by inserting your XP cd, and going through to repair, and then when the choices come up choose repair, and first , run ,fixboot', then 'fixmbr'.

 

Thanks for the reply.
I bought the new drive OEM, no software came with it. I also tried to repair
the boot with my XP cd, did not go well. Maybe i can try it again, but don't
really know what i might have done wrong.

 

If you connect your new drive to your old drive as a slave drive, the right click my computer, click manage, and you then click disk management, and in the right side you should see your new drive - right click on it and see what options are given-It may well need to be activated- (if the option is given activate [or, initiate] the drive)
You may need to start again, if that is not available, or, does not work.
For a new hard drive that you are not going to install Windows on, first do as above paragraph, then once activated, create partition, personally, I recommend Fat32, until you install Windows, as it is easier to deal with if things go wrong.
Now the other problem you had might have been that your new hard drive is a different size to the original, and some programs will not copy properly if that is the case, unless the hard drives are the same size

 

there is a lot of amount of programs which allow users to migrate the hard drive to a new one. Personally I used to use True Image for this purpose but I bought it as a backup utility, the "migrate hdd" option was not the main for me at that time. Anyway, you may use the Migrate Easy (simple part of True Image related to hdd migration only and is cheaper) tool or even a free tool from your HDD manufacturer - go to its site to find proper software.

 

Visit the hard drive manufacturer's web site. As mentioned above, all the makers have these tools for their hard drives, and the tools are free to download. Alternatively, there's Norton's Ghost which works great (but it ain't cheap). Check the BackUp section or the Drive Utilites section here at MajorGeeks. There's a free util called HDClone; I just read about it about 30 minutes ago. It's free and should do what you need. It's in the Back Up section.

hd2k