anyone know how to copy a hard drive?

[Rainer]

I'm getting a new hard drive soon, and I want to do an exact transfer from my old one to my new one. my current drive has several partitions, and windows xp. has anyone ever done this?

[Ushma]

dd, a most wonderful command. If you have a Unixlike box, of course. Although you could probably get Knoppix or some such and use it. Plug in both hard drives and dd it right across.

Although it might not be a good idea to move raw data from one harddrive to a different one.

[I Lostalim]

Well just make sure that your new drive is formatted and partitioned as you like it - and with enough space in each partition to hold the information needed....

Then you open up a Command Prompt Window,
(assuming one old Partion is designated Drive C: and the matching new one is Drive G:)
type the following command at the prompt:

copy C:\*.* G:\*.*

Which will copy every file of every type from Drive C: across to Drive G: (be patient)

Alternatively from Windows itself you (should be able to) click-and-drag "Drive C:" aross to "Drive G:" making sure you hold down the Shift-key so a "+" symbol appears and then let go - it will copy.

"Copy and Paste" also works for files, just right-click the drive and select "Copy" then select the new drive and right-click "Paste"

[AR]

Copying and pasting the files will corrupt the Windows installation, so don't bother taking the "Windows" or "Program Files" directories as you will have to reinstall everything anyway.

[Rainer]

I know how to copy and paste or copy in dos . the point is I dont want to reinstall everything. I have it the way I like it. I was hoping there might be a technique or program out there to copy like the way norton ghost does.

[I Lostalim]

Granted, but the query was how to copy from one hard drive to the other... I wasn't assuming that any of the drives were actually the bootable drive - I merely answered the question asked.

Ahh, it didn't cross my mind in regards to "Program Files" directory though ... oops.

[Rainer]

I did say exact transfer. maybe I wasnt clear enough. I want an EXACT copy of my old hard drive onto my new one, including all programs, windows xp, and boot sectors, partitions, and whatever else is kept on the drive. then, I just take the old one out, make the new one primary, and restart, and windows and any other program will be none-the-wiser. an exact sector for sector copy, the only difference in the end between the two drives is one will have more space. is this possible? if not, is it possible to do what I want(ie keep my programs without reinstalling them).

[AR]

Windows XP may refuse to start because of the activation thing, it may detect a different HDD serial number and refuse to boot.

The only way I can think of is using "dd" as suggested before, if you don't have a Linux install then just download a boot cd image. You might be able to get something like ghost as freeware but I don't know any.

[Candy]

Think WinXP would rather mention something having changed and that you can only change 2 more things before you need to reactivate.

[bubach]

Try using Norton Ghost or similar tool.

[I Lostalim]

I did say exact transfer. maybe I wasnt clear enough. I want an EXACT copy of my old hard drive onto my new one, including all programs, windows xp, and boot sectors, partitions, and whatever else is kept on the drive. then, I just take the old one out, make the new one primary, and restart, and windows and any other program will be none-the-wiser. an exact sector for sector copy, the only difference in the end between the two drives is one will have more space. is this possible? if not, is it possible to do what I want(ie keep my programs without reinstalling them).

Err ok - I've never found sufficient reason to want to actually do that.... The only time I've actually seen it done was with CD's for illegal purposes - and I can only imagine doing it to a HDD if there were super secret plans to a doomsday device and i happened to be James Bond....

Ok, so I'm being a little over exaggerating, but personally, I've prefered reinstalling - because depending on "drive size/amount of software vs processor/drive speeds" it can be quicker and most importantly I know exactly what should work and know that it won't complain or mess anything up...

Maybe that's just me.

[Eero Ränik]

You can do it using Norton Ghost, for example.
I Lostalim, I think the main reason to clone disks is time. Getting a fresh installation into a point where you can do everything you used to on an old one, always takes more time than just switching hard drives.

[I Lostalim]

Yes well - as I said, I was exagerating some in my statements - not to mention I s'pose disk cloning is a tad faster than the last time I tried it...

But still, I don't tend to view installations as valuable - I uninstall and re-install all the time based on what I'm currently doing... the only reason I'd want to save data on a disk is for files I'd personally created whether they are "Save Files" from a game or text documents or whatever.

On the installation side of things, my choatic registry would probably thank me for relaoding everything from the begining again.