"Nehmo Sergheyev" wrote:
Windows XP Home (SP1)

I originally had and still have a 15 GB HD, using NTFS,
which had the OS and everything else on it.

I just installed a Maxtor 80 GB DiamondMax Plus 9
Model 6Y080P0 ,which has a 5 MB Buffer, configured
(with the jumpers on the back) as a slave. It shows up
Computer Management as Healthy and Online using
NTFS. I named it Grape (E. I'm using fruit names
nowadays.

Since the new drive is faster than the old, I want to
move the OS to it. So how do I go about doing that?

The new drive came with the MaxBlast 3 app. The
Maxtor guy on the phone said I could use that to
move the OS, but I'm not clear how. It has a copy
function, but then how do I get the computer to know
the OS is now on E instead of C?

You don't. You can't move your system from one drive letter to another.
Fortunately, that's not what you want to do, you want to replace your old C:
with a new C:. Unfortunately, you're doing it the wrong way.

The proper way to use MaxBlast is to install both HDDs, boot MaxBlast from
floppy disk, do the prep and copying, remove the original HDD, and boot the
new HDD. You don't want to let old-XP see the new HDD before doing the copy,
and you don't want new-XP to see old-XP the first time it boots up. Many
people who complain of problems with cloning utilities have made one of
these two mistakes.

At this point, a Win98 boot floppy may work to fix things back up. Remove
the old HDD, install new HDD as master, boot from a Win98 boot floppy
(download one from www.bootdisk.com if you need to), and execute the command
"fdisk /mbr". This should remove the Disk ID XP put on the new HDD, causing
XP to forget that HDD was E:. Now use MaxBlast to copy the old drive to
new, then remove the old HDD. If all goes well, when you reboot XP should
come up as C: on the new HDD. You can subsequently reinstall the old HDD,
but only after first getting the system back up and running as a one-HDD
system.

If you let XP see the new disk before cloning, XP may give it a drive letter
(E:, in your case), and record that fact in its registry. Then when you
clone XP to the new disk, of course the registry goes with it. Then when you
try to boot the new disk, XP recognizes the disk it's on was already given
another drive letter -- namely, E: -- so the boot sequence hangs, looking in
vain for drive C:. The Win98 "fdisk /mbr" command is a quick way to force XP
to forget the previous drive letter assignment. (Note: the "fixmbr" command
from the XP recovery console may seem to be similar, but in fact will not
invalidate previous drive letter assignments.)

Note MaxBlast usually works fine, but is not a particularly robust program
and some people run into a glitch here or there with it. The price is
right, though, and it doesn't hurt to try it (as long as you don't
mistakenly copy in the wrong direction), so try it first. If it doesn't
work for you, you'll need to use one of the other numerous utilities
mentioned here frequently -- Ghost, DriveImage, BootIt NG, TrueImage, Casper
XP, and others.