Copying entire C Drive to another Hard Drive

[Steve Elliott]

I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying everything
on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop within
Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need to be
omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win 98
that must not be copied).

Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over inside
so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
worked with Win 98.

Thanks for your help.

Steve.

[CWatters]

I don't believe drag and drop will work. Try a program like Norton Ghost.


"Steve Elliott" > wrote in message
...
> I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying everything
> on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop
within
> Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need to
be
> omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win 98
> that must not be copied).
>
> Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over
inside
> so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
> worked with Win 98.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Steve.
>
>

[CWatters]

I don't believe drag and drop will work. Try a program like Norton Ghost.


"Steve Elliott" > wrote in message
...
> I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying everything
> on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop
within
> Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need to
be
> omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win 98
> that must not be copied).
>
> Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over
inside
> so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
> worked with Win 98.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Steve.
>
>

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

The boot sector doesn't get copied over when you copy *all* the files
from one disk to the other. In win98 you could do a "sys" as part of a
DOS format to make the disk bootable. In XP this is done as part of the
XP install. You'd have to "fixboot" to get the second disk to be able to
boot directly after copying all the files. Fixboot is a Recovery Console
command you can execute from the bootable retail CD and many OEM CDs.
You would only have to do this once, not each time you backup. Even
then, the second disk won't boot from the NT boot loader on the first
disk -- it will only boot if you change boot device in the BIOS.

Drag and drop usually won't work to copy all the super-hidden files. The
command xcopy.exe can copy all of the files, but you have to learn a lot
of command switches to get xcopy done right. You might want to skip the
pagefile and hiberfil.sys files and perhaps the SVI folder (which you
don't have permission to read anyway).

If it was me, I'd use BootItNG to manage my partitions and booting those
partitions. I'd use the nifty partition image capability to copy one
partition to another. www.terabyteunlimited.com.

--
Kent W. England, Microsoft MVP for Windows



"Steve Elliott" > wrote in message
...
> I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying
> everything
> on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop
> within
> Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need
> to be
> omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win
> 98
> that must not be copied).
>
> Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over
> inside
> so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
> worked with Win 98.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Steve.
>
>

[Kent W. England [MVP]]

The boot sector doesn't get copied over when you copy *all* the files
from one disk to the other. In win98 you could do a "sys" as part of a
DOS format to make the disk bootable. In XP this is done as part of the
XP install. You'd have to "fixboot" to get the second disk to be able to
boot directly after copying all the files. Fixboot is a Recovery Console
command you can execute from the bootable retail CD and many OEM CDs.
You would only have to do this once, not each time you backup. Even
then, the second disk won't boot from the NT boot loader on the first
disk -- it will only boot if you change boot device in the BIOS.

Drag and drop usually won't work to copy all the super-hidden files. The
command xcopy.exe can copy all of the files, but you have to learn a lot
of command switches to get xcopy done right. You might want to skip the
pagefile and hiberfil.sys files and perhaps the SVI folder (which you
don't have permission to read anyway).

If it was me, I'd use BootItNG to manage my partitions and booting those
partitions. I'd use the nifty partition image capability to copy one
partition to another. www.terabyteunlimited.com.

--
Kent W. England, Microsoft MVP for Windows



"Steve Elliott" > wrote in message
...
> I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying
> everything
> on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop
> within
> Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need
> to be
> omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win
> 98
> that must not be copied).
>
> Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over
> inside
> so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
> worked with Win 98.
>
> Thanks for your help.
>
> Steve.
>
>

[Ron Martell]

"Steve Elliott" > wrote:

>I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying everything
>on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop within
>Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need to be
>omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win 98
>that must not be copied).
>
>Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over inside
>so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
>worked with Win 98.
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Steve.
>

You need to use a utility program that is designed for copying an entire
driver or partition. There are several of these available including:

1. Norton Ghost from Symantec.
2. Drive Copy from Power Quest
3. BootItNG from www.bootitng.com
4. Most hard drive manufacturers have a drive cloning utility available
for download from their web site. These usually only work if one of the
drives involved is from that manufacturer.
5. XXCOPY (very slow but free and reliable) from www.xxcopy.com

Using Windows Explorer or the XCopy utility in Windows is not recommended
because of the potential for file name corruption during the copying
process. See http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#newdisk for an illustration
of the type of name corruption that can occur.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

[Ron Martell]

"Steve Elliott" > wrote:

>I want to back up the entire contents of my C Drive, by copying everything
>on to a second hard drive I have installed. Can I just drag and drop within
>Win XP (Home Edition)? If so, are there any specific files that need to be
>omitted during copying (there used to be a windows swap file under Win 98
>that must not be copied).
>
>Once copied, I would like to be in a position to swap the drives over inside
>so the pc boots straight from the drive I had just copied too - always
>worked with Win 98.
>
>Thanks for your help.
>
>Steve.
>

You need to use a utility program that is designed for copying an entire
driver or partition. There are several of these available including:

1. Norton Ghost from Symantec.
2. Drive Copy from Power Quest
3. BootItNG from www.bootitng.com
4. Most hard drive manufacturers have a drive cloning utility available
for download from their web site. These usually only work if one of the
drives involved is from that manufacturer.
5. XXCOPY (very slow but free and reliable) from www.xxcopy.com

Using Windows Explorer or the XCopy utility in Windows is not recommended
because of the potential for file name corruption during the copying
process. See http://onlinehelp.bc.ca/tips.htm#newdisk for an illustration
of the type of name corruption that can occur.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."