I need to copy one HD to another.

[enko]

Just got a hard drive on advanced RMA. So I need to copy the old hard drive onto the new one before I return it.

a) Can I do this in Windows? The hard drive is the system drive.

b) Program suggestions? Tried Western Digital tools, but it doesn't support my SATA CDROM. :| Great.

[risqu3]

"Nero BackItUp"

[hagbard]

xxClone.

Get it here:

http://www.xxclone.com/

Does not work in VISTA btw.

[enko]

I will try this xxClone when I get home - looks promising. Thanks :)

[Aske001]

No! Don't use XXClone to copy a WinXP system drive - it subtly corrupts the Microsoft Installer Patch database, a known problem. You may not notice immediately, but soon you'll start to notice desktop icons changing unexpectedly, and when you attempt to update, remove or install software that uses MSI (like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat), you'll get unfixable errors.

Try the free version of Acronis True Image. Some disk drive manufacturers also offer an OEM version of it, like Seagate Disk Wizard.

[enko]

Hmmm.

The problem with Acronis is, doesn't it boot to DOS?

[rv2843]

It got to be:

ghost

[Aske001]

The problem with Acronis is, doesn't it boot to DOS?

You can do the backup in Windows. If you can plug your new drive in and access it from Windows, just do a direct copy from your current system drive to the new one. Then turn off the system, unplug and swap the drives, reboot.

To restore to your main system drive from a backup set, you need to boot from a separate restore disk, which you can create in True Image. Can be a CDROM or USB memory stick as long as your system BIOS supports booting CDROM or USB.

Norton Ghost will also work - but similar restrictions, and it's not free.

[willy]

And in case you do use Ghost, you need Ghost 11 (or higher) to support Vista.

[hagbard]

No! Don't use XXClone to copy a WinXP system drive - it subtly corrupts the Microsoft Installer Patch database, a known problem. You may not notice immediately, but soon you'll start to notice desktop icons changing unexpectedly, and when you attempt to update, remove or install software that uses MSI (like MS Office or Adobe Acrobat), you'll get unfixable errors.

Try the free version of Acronis True Image. Some disk drive manufacturers also offer an OEM version of it, like Seagate Disk Wizard.

Odd. I've been using it for a year, and haven't run into problems (but then, I don't use MS stuff other than the OS).

[Kaitlyn]

You want to copy your system drive? I say take this opportunity to start fresh and slowly only install what you need.

Nice to start clean when you can. You'll notice it!

[rabbit]

I've been using XXClone and haven't notice any problems either.

Did a search on google for: +xxclone +"microsoft installer patch database" and only got two hits. Both hits seem to be quite recent, so I wonder if it's only a bug with the latest version, or with so few hits, maybe it's only with isolated cases.

[enko]

You want to copy your system drive? I say take this opportunity to start fresh and slowly only install what you need.

Nice to start clean when you can. You'll notice it!

Just did that on the first 400gig drive - it was previously just a data drive, now it's system/data.. did it in preparation for receiving the advance RMA ;)


Thanks everyone - I used Acronis on Hiren's Boot CD, worked great.

[Aske001]

I've been using XXClone and haven't notice any problems either.

Did a search on google for: +xxclone +"microsoft installer patch database" and only got two hits. Both hits seem to be quite recent, so I wonder if it's only a bug with the latest version, or with so few hits, maybe it's only with isolated cases.

Actually it's been around for a while, and I'm pretty sure it affects every XXClone copy and has never been fixed.

That's the trouble with subtle problems. People don't even realize what happened when their icons start going wonky a month later. And when they try to update an Office component and get a cryptic error message a couple of months later, they have no idea where things went wrong.

I was able to confirm directly that XXClone was the cause by going back to the original untouched HD and verifying that the problem wasn't there on the original disk, but shows up immediately after XXClone makes a copy. Then the light bulb went on about the problems that other people in the office had before me with XXClone copies, and I was able to dig up the old reports of this problem online.

[hagbard]

Just tried Acronis True Image and Seagate Disk Wizard and couldn't get either to work. They'd go through the motions, even say it was completed, but no copy at all. Back to XXClone, never had any problem with it.

BTW, when Acronis True Image says its limited for 15 days, that doesn't mean it will lock me out of my drive after 15 days right?

[Tjalfe]

in the old days you could use xcopy32 c:\*.* /e/c/h/r/k d:\
then sys d:
All from a command window inside windows.
I suppose none of that works anymore :(

[hagbard]

in the old days you could use xcopy32 c:\*.* /e/c/h/r/k d:\
then sys d:
All from a command window inside windows.
I suppose none of that works anymore :(

Well, let me give it a shot. Could my issue have been that I was copying from a SATA drive to a IDE drive, or that the destination drive was smaller than the originating drive?

Just tried it, xcopy32 doesn't work at least from within XP. Okay, it does work (not xcopy32 though). Its going to take days, and when its done, I'll realize that I don't have it set as a boot drive.

[hagbard]

Xcopy didn't work either. Now trying MaxBlast 4.

[Tjalfe]

in the olden days, the sys command should have made the drive bootable. .. but again, it has been years since I did anything like this.. and it seems xcopy32 has been replaced with plain old xcopy. it used to be that xcopy could not do long file names, where as xcopy32 could.. man, I am dating myself back to the dos days now :|