system swap

How do I transfer the contents of my existing drive to a new drive and how do I format the new drive to NTFS ?

 

Are you adding another drive to your existing PC or do you want to transfer your data to a new machine?

 

Do you want the new drive to be your new boot drive? What make and model is your hard drive? Did it come with a CD with some hard drive utilities on it? If not, do you know how to download programs over the internet and install them?

 

I want to put in a new larger hard drive to my existing computer, to replace the smaller one that I have now,so it would have to boot.The new drive is a Seagate, I do not have a CD with the drive,or drive utilities.

 

Sorry,I have XP Pro on the existing drive

 

I'm assuming you know how to download software from the internet and how to then install such a download.

If you go to the Seagate website and look for a downloads section (may be a sub-section under support) you should find a set of hard drive utilities you can download for free. (Every major hard drive company, I think, has such a free set of utilities designed to work with their own brand. Even if your old hard drive is a different brand you should use the hard drive utilities from the maker of the new hard drive that you want to setup as your new boot drive, or, for that matter, even if you just want to use the new drive as a backup or for additional storage. Usually these utilities are included in the drive package on a CD packed along with a new hard drive, though if you order an OEM drive those packages may not include a drive utility CD, so you have to download the software and install it.)

These utilities will likely include some diagnostic software, perhaps a tutorial explaining the steps you need to follow to set your new Seagate drive as your new boot drive, and should include a utility you can run that will copy your old hard drive's contents to your new Seagate hard drive and make it bootable. Is your new hard drive an IDE/ATA drive or a SATA/SATA II? If the former, you may have to move a "jumper" on the new hard drive for the "copy old drive to new boot drive" operation and then move it to another position once it's ready to serve as the new boot drive.

Download the software from Seagate along with any available instructions and see if you can figure out how to use it. If you have some problems getting it to work, let us know and tell us what's happening.

Good luck!

 

Thank you Eezak for the speed of response,I will try that and let you know the result.