Copying OS for use on New HD

[KG4CGC]

Been asked before, I'm sure.
I want to copy the OS from my current drive while it's still kicking.
XP, I have a drive waiting. I can hook it up as an aux HD to do this.

Indications are that this current drive will die soon. It's been kicking for 4.5 years but it's showing signs of impending doom.

Pointing me in the right direction would be great. I've never gone this route before although in the past it was because it was too late.

Help, utilities, advice, anecdotal do's and dont's, etc, etc, etc.

XP, 360gig main drive, replacement main drive will be 500gig. AMD 6000 cpu if that is of any consequence.

[NQ6U]

Last time I did that I used Carbon Copy Cloner. Free, but I'm not sure if there is a Winders version.

[kd8dey]

I would just remove the old drive (temporarily) and do a fresh install of the O.S. on the new drive. then install the programs that I want to use. That way I don't worry about any corruption in the registry etc.

Before I started I would go online and make sure I have the latest network and video drivers along with SP3.
That way you can download the rest (audio etc) after everything is back together.

Then connect the old drive as a secondary and move my documents etc to the new drive.

Of course you would have to re validate XP (no biggie). if you need to call the automated 800 number choose the option that you replaced the HD, and the system will give you a code to type in to validate....

[KC2UGV]

You can use a GParted Boot CD to do an image from one drive to another. Norton Ghost too. Only two utilities I am familiar with, I'm sure there are more.

[N8YX]

From a Knoppix boot disk:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

(Where hda is the old disk and hdb is the new disk.)

Make sure those mount points actually exist before you begin the copy.

If using Ghost, make sure you're at least at Rev8 (preferably, 11 or better) and use the "-id" (forensic copy) specifier at the command line when starting the program.

[ka8ncr]

GParted is my choice. A GUI, and it's been reliable for my uses.

[KC2UGV]

From a Knoppix boot disk:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb

(Where hda is the old disk and hdb is the new disk.)

Make sure those mount points actually exist before you begin the copy.

If using Ghost, make sure you're at least at Rev8 (preferably, 11 or better) and use the "-id" (forensic copy) specifier at the command line when starting the program.

You hit a snag with DD when the drives are different sizes. GParted and Ghost I know do the resizing on-the-fly.

[N8YX]

You hit a snag with DD when the drives are different sizes. GParted and Ghost I know do the resizing on-the-fly.
I did that intentionally.

Win-XP's product activation will occasionally squawk when you're copying to a different model/size drive and you'll have to re-register.

[KG4CGC]

I did that intentionally.

Win-XP's product activation will occasionally squawk when you're copying to a different model/size drive and you'll have to re-register.
That's fine. I have the key as this is a registered version. I just don't want to start from scratch.
Thanks for the replies and I'm still all ears!

[WØTKX]

I like to install winders in a smaller boot partition, then install almost all the apps on another (next) partition. That way backing up the OS is simpler, and a boot hassle can be fixed very quickly. I back up the registry every time the system reboots... keeping the last three copies.

Been using a commercial product called Partition Commander for a few years, and it's been very useful with any flavor of OS that I've played with... especially "other peoples" stuff.

[W3WN]

Been asked before, I'm sure.
I want to copy the OS from my current drive while it's still kicking.
XP, I have a drive waiting. I can hook it up as an aux HD to do this.

Indications are that this current drive will die soon. It's been kicking for 4.5 years but it's showing signs of impending doom.

Pointing me in the right direction would be great. I've never gone this route before although in the past it was because it was too late.

Help, utilities, advice, anecdotal do's and dont's, etc, etc, etc.

XP, 360gig main drive, replacement main drive will be 500gig. AMD 6000 cpu if that is of any consequence.

I have a copy of Norton Ghost (2002). What I do is temporarily set up the new drive as a secondary, and then clone from the old to the new. The nice thing about this version of Ghost is that it lets me set up the new partition size(s), so... well, if I'm going from a 20 or 40 GB drive to a much larger one, I can set up a big C: drive (say, ~300 of a 320 GB drive) and still keep a small D: drive for some old software that prefers a FAT32 partition.

There are other apps that work as well or better... but this one, I have.

Now, if you don't need a clone of the old drive, there's nothing wrong with doing a clean install of the OS, drivers, patches & updates on the new drive. Reinstall (or install updated) your software. Then use the old drive as a temporary D or E drive and copy your data directly over.

And it should go without saying, it wouldn't hurt first back up your data to CD or DVD before doing anything. Do that, then you don't even have to bother with the old drive, just reload data from the backup.

[n6hcm]

acronis has a free download (trial) and is generally the gold standard for people using windows to do this sort of thing. you can also use it for regular backups (full or differential). www.acronis.com

[n2ize]

My regular desktop machine runs both windows and linux. Each OS is on it's own separate drive. I generally like to let each operating system have a whole drive to itself. I keep the Linux drive partitioned suych that certain directories like /home, /usr/local , etc are on separate partitions. This way when instaall the latest version of fedora I can let the install wipe clean certain partitions while protecting /home, etc from being formatted & overwritten.

My server (runs only linux) I have configured for a lot of different tasks, i.e. DNS, Mail, FTP, MySQL, HTTP, Proxy, etc. I want to put a new drive into that machine and clone the old drive to it. How is "G4L" (Ghost for Linux) for accomplishing this task ?

[KG4CGC]

Well so far, I attached the drive internally but I can't find it. The install wizard and the bios say it's there and I can even run tests on it but when it comes to moving files to it, no dice. It doesn't show up like the rest of the drives.
SATA directions say that no jumpers are required. I'm thinking that this may be incorrect in my case. I will need to dig up a jumper, I have some somewhere and try that.

[n6hcm]

SATA directions say that no jumpers are required. I'm thinking that this may be incorrect in my case. I will need to dig up a jumper, I have some somewhere and try that.

SATA drives don't require jumpers to be set. instead, right-click on your "My Computer" icon and choose "Manage" ... once you have done this, you should select "Storage" in the right hand nav bar ... open up disk management and you'll see all your hard disks, including those upon which you haven't formatted, assigned a drive letter, ...

from this window you should be easily able to identify the new drive ... write a partition on it, format it, and assign a drive letter and then you should be able to copy to it.

[KG4CGC]

SATA drives don't require jumpers to be set. instead, right-click on your "My Computer" icon and choose "Manage" ... once you have done this, you should select "Storage" in the right hand nav bar ... open up disk management and you'll see all your hard disks, including those upon which you haven't formatted, assigned a drive letter, ...

from this window you should be easily able to identify the new drive ... write a partition on it, format it, and assign a drive letter and then you should be able to copy to it.
Copy that.
Thanks.

[ad4mg]

My server (runs only linux) I have configured for a lot of different tasks, i.e. DNS, Mail, FTP, MySQL, HTTP, Proxy, etc. I want to put a new drive into that machine and clone the old drive to it. How is "G4L" (Ghost for Linux) for accomplishing this task ?
Clonezilla - for anyone with even a smidgen of Linux knowledge. Why bother with anything else? Clonezilla just works, none better!

Links to "Live CD" .iso files (each approximately 130MB in size):

32 bit version for older machines:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/1.2.6-59/clonezilla-live-1.2.6-59-i486.iso/download

32 bit for Pentium class machines:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/1.2.6-59/clonezilla-live-1.2.6-59-i686.iso/download

64 bit:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/clonezilla/files/clonezilla_live_stable/1.2.6-59/clonezilla-live-1.2.6-59-amd64.iso/download

[W4GPL]

You hit a snag with DD when the drives are different sizes. GParted and Ghost I know do the resizing on-the-fly.Yeah, I use dd and then resize after I have everything back up and running. FWIW, dd is especially great if the drive you're copying from has errors. 'dd bs=512 conv=noerror,sync if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb' -- it doesn't baulk at unreadable sectors and if you're lucky, that part of the drive won't contain important data. :)