changing a hard drive

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

okay so i got the easeus partition program.
had it copy the partition on drive c to drive g.
took like 10 hours for the whole process.

now i got everything on drive c and drive g to be the same.

i want to remove drive c and use the drive g as system drive.
but it wont let me change the drive letters and it won't let me set it to system.

i tried to change the boot drive in the bios to the g drive but it said ntdl was not there.
but when i looked on the drive it was there.

so how can i change the drive letter of g to drive c and remove the system from drive c and then remove the drive c from the computer and not have any trouble.?

in case your wondering the drive c is old and small and out of room drive g is three times the size of drive c.

already have the partition sized to the whole drive and stuff i just can't change the letter and the system inducator to g drive.

Surprised

last time i did this was to win98 it was simple then i just removed the hd and changed the jumper on it. but it was messed up and did not change the hd letter either. but i got it to change in the bios this xp i can't get to change in the bios.

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

If you want to swap hard drives, then copy isn't what you want. You need to find something that will clone. A lot of hard drives by the major vendors will have software available for download so you can clone your old drive to the new drive.

A copy just takes what is on C but it does not take the MBR which is in a tiny partition before C.

davolente · Joined: Oct 04, 2003 Posts: 361 Location: Kent, UK

Quite a few freebie drive cloning programs out there.
Clonezilla: http://clonezilla.org
HD Clone: http://www.miray.de/products/sat.hdclone.html
To name but two.

goretsky · Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:09 am Post subject:

Hello,

Which version of Microsoft Windows is on the hard disk drive you are trying to clone?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

have hd clone it was for win98.

but i thought the feature in the easeus partition program would make an exact copy of the partition,. and since there is not any other partition then c on the drive it should copy everything. i did check the nt stuff is on both drives.

it is xp pro sp3.

zzron357 · Joined: Oct 14, 2004 Posts: 65

Hi Keith, If ide drives, swap jumpers and OS will rename C: and G:.
If sata, swap MB sata connectors. AND, I still recommend Puppy Linux,
Parted Magic, Gparted to examine the drives and partitions. Puppy has Gparted
as an app. All are linux live cd's. Check to see if first partition in new drive
is set active, ie. set to boot. This is often reason new drive may not boot.
Copying files does not set boot. A clone or image transfer should set boot
boot with these cd's (I just downloaded new Parted Magic) but always check
partitions for boot etc. Can resize, format, etc with Gparted. I think the Easus
part mgr is taken from gparted. Looks a lot like it. Open source software.
Best wishes, zzron PS: Everyone should give Puppy a try. See what the future
looks like now. Simple, clean, fast, no M$.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

okay thats what i thought i got to take the old drive out and put the new one in its place and switch jumpers.

i can't get it to even let me set active or system on it in m$'s partition manager. so i've got to shut down this computer and do it some time. but not now i'm online now. Cool

goretsky · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 3:33 am Post subject:

Hello,

If the computer does not boot after you have swapped hard disk drives, try doing a repair installation of Microsoft Windows XP. This web site gives a description of the process.

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

Dshrive · Joined: Oct 14, 2005 Posts: 4

Download XXCLONE from www.xxclone.com.
Clone your drive, and then, after the cloning is complete, start the xxclone program again, and use 'cool tools' to make the cloned drive bootable. 'cool tools' writes the Master Boot Record, writes the Boot Sector and creates a new Boot.ini file. These three changes are necessary before the new volume will be come bootable.

Works ONLY with Windows XP. Good luck.

Don S

drwho07 · Joined: Nov 29, 2007 Posts: 2240 Location: Central FL, USA

Two programs we've talked about, extensively, on this very forum for the past nn years that do a drive backup or Clone are Ghost, my favorite, or Acronis True Image.

If you have at least one drive in your computer that was made by either Seagate or Maxtor, you can download a drive maintenance program from either of those companies for FREE, that will allow you to create your own CD boot disk with Acronis True Image on it.
Getting Ghost for FREE is a little bit harder, but doable.

Cloning most drives will take less than an hour, if both drives are hard wired into the same system and not on a USB line. A clone will always boot the system because it's an EXACT duplicate of the original. NO special jumping through hoops is required. One program is all you need.
I do it all the time.

Doc Cool

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

okay got it changed the old one is out the new one is in. i used hdcopy 3. i found on majorgeeks.
it was a limited freeware so i used it. the program does what i needed in the free version you others would more likely want to buy it for the other op's you more likely use.

now i'm in the process of resetting the firewall and a few other settings that for some reason seemed to be set to default when it was rebooted.
but i'm on the computer now and its working. got another question will ask in a new thread.

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

Do you have a link?
All I found was hdcopy v2 something
http://majorgeeks.com/HDCopy_d1288.html
and it is not for any OS later than ME.
I get no hits for "hdcopy 3" .

I'd like to be able to tell some people trying to do this once, what to use.

rovingcowboy · Joined: Jan 26, 2003 Posts: 1515

no i just searched for hdcopy, so try that but add the number 3.8 it should show up.

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2747

Could you mean hdclone 3.8 ?
http://majorgeeks.com/HDClone_Free_Edition_d3809.html

I googled and as far as I can tell, there is no hdcopy 3.8 but I got a link which mentioned hdclone and I started searching for that.