Installing a new hard drive

[K Cox]

I have a 20 gig hard drive on my Gateway Performance PC.
I have the drive partitioned into two 9+ gig partitions.
The drive with the OS on it is getting pretty full. So I
purchased an 80 gig Western Digital, threw it in,
formatted and partitioned it. XP has no problem
recognizing the new hard drive and partitions. Now I'd
like to copy my old OS drive to one of the partitions on
the new hard drive. How do I accomplish this task?

[I'm Dan]

"K Cox" > wrote:
> I have a 20 gig hard drive on my Gateway Performance
> PC. I have the drive partitioned into two 9+ gig partitions.
> The drive with the OS on it is getting pretty full. So I
> purchased an 80 gig Western Digital, threw it in,
> formatted and partitioned it. XP has no problem
> recognizing the new hard drive and partitions. Now I'd
> like to copy my old OS drive to one of the partitions on
> the new hard drive. How do I accomplish this task?

You've already created problems for yourself. You should not have let XP
see the new drive. The way you should have done it was to use a simple disk
copy utility from the drive manufacturer. Western Digital provides free
software specifically for that purpose. If you didn't get a floppy disk
with your new HD, visit www.wdc.com and download it (Data Lifeguard) to a
floppy. To use, it's as simple as plugging in both HD's, boot from the
floppy, copy one HD to the other, remove old HD, put new HD in its place,
and reboot. You're not supposed to install the new HD first and try to
format it with XP; just put it in bare and boot the utility floppy. Many
people make this mistake, as you did, which gives XP a chance to give the
new HD a different drive letter, which can screw things up when you
subsequently try to copy the OS.

Now that you've messed up, you'll need to do some surgery with regedit.
Assuming your OS drive letter is C:, start regedit and navigate to the
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices] registry key. You'll find a
bunch of entries like "\??\Volume{...}" and "\DosDevices\...". Delete them
all. This will force XP to forget it saw the new HD, and the valid entries
will be rebuilt the next time XP boots. Now shut down and copy the OS to
the new HD using the Data Lifeguard floppy, remove the old HD, put the new
HD in as master, and reboot into XP so it can rebuild the registry key. Do
not leave the old HD installed as a slave when you first boot the new HD.
Get the system back up and running with the new HD by itself first. After
the new HD is running properly as a single-HD system, you may reformat and
install the old HD as a slave if you want.

[Ed_]

In article >, "I'm says...
>
>
>"K Cox" > wrote:
>> I have a 20 gig hard drive on my Gateway Performance
>> PC. I have the drive partitioned into two 9+ gig partitions.
>> The drive with the OS on it is getting pretty full. So I
>> purchased an 80 gig Western Digital, threw it in,
>> formatted and partitioned it. XP has no problem
>> recognizing the new hard drive and partitions. Now I'd
>> like to copy my old OS drive to one of the partitions on
>> the new hard drive. How do I accomplish this task?
>
>You've already created problems for yourself. You should not have let XP
>see the new drive. The way you should have done it was to use a simple disk
>copy utility from the drive manufacturer. Western Digital provides free
>software specifically for that purpose. If you didn't get a floppy disk
>with your new HD, visit www.wdc.com and download it (Data Lifeguard) to a
>floppy. To use, it's as simple as plugging in both HD's, boot from the
>floppy, copy one HD to the other, remove old HD, put new HD in its place,
>and reboot. You're not supposed to install the new HD first and try to
>format it with XP; just put it in bare and boot the utility floppy. Many
>people make this mistake, as you did, which gives XP a chance to give the
>new HD a different drive letter, which can screw things up when you
>subsequently try to copy the OS.
>
>Now that you've messed up, you'll need to do some surgery with regedit.
>Assuming your OS drive letter is C:, start regedit and navigate to the
>[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices] registry key. You'll find a
>bunch of entries like "\??\Volume{...}" and "\DosDevices\...". Delete them
>all. This will force XP to forget it saw the new HD, and the valid entries
>will be rebuilt the next time XP boots. Now shut down and copy the OS to
>the new HD using the Data Lifeguard floppy, remove the old HD, put the new
>HD in as master, and reboot into XP so it can rebuild the registry key. Do
>not leave the old HD installed as a slave when you first boot the new HD.
>Get the system back up and running with the new HD by itself first. After
>the new HD is running properly as a single-HD system, you may reformat and
>install the old HD as a slave if you want.
>
>
>
>
Oh my!!

About 3 months ago I did just what the OP has done with 2 different systems.

I intalled and formatted a new drive. letting XP assign the drive letter G.
Then, using Ghost 2003, I imaged the OS partitions of the old drive(C) to the
new drive(G).

When Ghost declared this successful, I then shut down the computer and removed
the old drive(C) and replaced it's with the new drive(G), after changing the
jumpers on the new drive(G) and moving to the master position on the IDE cable.

When I rebooted the new drive (formerly G) became (C). The putting the old
drive(formerly C) back in with the jumper changed to slave and the position on
the cable as slave, I formatted the old drive and assigned it a new drive letter
(G),

This has worked successfully on two different systems for 3 months now.

Now I find that I must have made the same terrible mistake that the OP did.

What to do now? What "problems have I created"? Have I "messed up"??? Should
I do "surgery"??

Ed

[K Cox]

Dude,
It ain't that serious. Don't know if you're trying to
make me feel bad because I'm no computer geek, but I'm
sure there's ways to do what I'm attempting without
screwing with my registry. Maybe you should get out more
and learn how to interact with people. You can keep your
advice.

Thanks, but no thanks!


>-----Original Message-----
>
>"K Cox" > wrote:
>> I have a 20 gig hard drive on my Gateway Performance
>> PC. I have the drive partitioned into two 9+ gig
partitions.
>> The drive with the OS on it is getting pretty full. So
I
>> purchased an 80 gig Western Digital, threw it in,
>> formatted and partitioned it. XP has no problem
>> recognizing the new hard drive and partitions. Now I'd
>> like to copy my old OS drive to one of the partitions
on
>> the new hard drive. How do I accomplish this task?
>
>You've already created problems for yourself. You
should not have let XP
>see the new drive. The way you should have done it was
to use a simple disk
>copy utility from the drive manufacturer. Western
Digital provides free
>software specifically for that purpose. If you didn't
get a floppy disk
>with your new HD, visit www.wdc.com and download it
(Data Lifeguard) to a
>floppy. To use, it's as simple as plugging in both
HD's, boot from the
>floppy, copy one HD to the other, remove old HD, put new
HD in its place,
>and reboot. You're not supposed to install the new HD
first and try to
>format it with XP; just put it in bare and boot the
utility floppy. Many
>people make this mistake, as you did, which gives XP a
chance to give the
>new HD a different drive letter, which can screw things
up when you
>subsequently try to copy the OS.
>
>Now that you've messed up, you'll need to do some
surgery with regedit.
>Assuming your OS drive letter is C:, start regedit and
navigate to the
>[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices] registry
key. You'll find a
>bunch of entries like "\??\Volume{...}"
and "\DosDevices\...". Delete them
>all. This will force XP to forget it saw the new HD,
and the valid entries
>will be rebuilt the next time XP boots. Now shut down
and copy the OS to
>the new HD using the Data Lifeguard floppy, remove the
old HD, put the new
>HD in as master, and reboot into XP so it can rebuild
the registry key. Do
>not leave the old HD installed as a slave when you first
boot the new HD.
>Get the system back up and running with the new HD by
itself first. After
>the new HD is running properly as a single-HD system,
you may reformat and
>install the old HD as a slave if you want.
>
>
>
>
>.
>