Zazula

If you wish to read the original article you can find it by clicking on this link


Kudos, John, on compiling such a useful and thorough article. PC users nowadays keep upgrading their system drives to bigger hard disks, yet the challenge of re-installing their operating system from scratch is a much-dreaded side effect of this venture. Your article shows the clearly easy path to follow in these cases - and anyhow cloning one's system disk comes always handy. Congratulations, and keep this great material coming!

JohnthePilot

Thanks for that Sakis.
There are still some refinements I want to make, but can't do anything til I get back home.

zemdarin

This article is excellent and I have read it after I managed to do it myself. What I would like to know is why I can't see step 10 in my BIOS. All I am able to do in the BIOS is change it from floppy/CDROM/HDD0/USB-RMD-FDD there is no indication of HDD1 although I know it works fine because I changed the jumper on the slave to master and disconnected the C:\ drive altogether.

Step 10. To boot directly from the new drive it is necessary to edit your BIOS so that HDD 1 replaces HDD 0.

I have posted about this in XP Forum but have had no answers as yet.

JohnthePilot

Hi Zendarin

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad the procedure worked for you even if you couldn't follow step 10. Rather than answer here, where few people view, I'll answer in your other thread. In the meantime, can you tell me which BIOS you are using?
Regards,
John.

zemdarin

Hi John thank you for quick reply. I do know how to change the BIOS from HDD0 to HDD1 but that is what I said in my post it isn't showing in there, only Floppy/CDROM/HDD0/and USB-RMD-FDD when I press the + to alter the settings. BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 07.00T 08/27/2002 that is when I last updated them.

JohnthePilot

I guessed so. I don't think AMI gives the option of specifying HDD1. I wrote this for the Award BIOS. I doesn't really matter. The only reason I included that was so that you could check that it had copied OK before swopping over. BTW, having swapped them over, it's worth keeping your original version on your now D:\ drive in case your main drive fails - believe me, it does happen. If it does you can simply clone back again. It's one of the best backup systems.

Any further questions, please ask.
Regards,
John

Dwozzer

Hello,
Any idea how to do this cloning process if your trying to transfer your operating system to a new bigger drive in a laptop.Is there some lead you can get to transfer data to new drive i.e perhaps through the usb ports to achieve cloning,before swapping the drives over.Any help on this one appreciated.

JohnthePilot

Hmm. You've got me there. Don't have much experience of laptops, but I have cloned to an external drive on my desktop using USB so no reason why it shouldn't work on a laptop. Give it a go. At least you won't harm your original drive. Just make sure that you make the new drive bootable.

kodi

Use an External Drive case connected to the USB Port on the laptop.
I use this method all the time on my desktop,but there will be no difference for a laptop

Dwozzer

Hi ,
Worth a try ,the only thing is >>>These usb external hard drive cases ,will they accomadate a smaller laptop drive ,are the case internal connections the same ? ( i thought thet were designed for the larger desktop drives)

kodi

You can get 2.5" (laptop) external cases.
I use a3.5" with the top open and an adapter to convert the IDE connection to the laptop connection

chauffeur2

You ought to be Congratulated John!

Your XxClone™ Tutorial is easier to follow than learning how to ride a push bike!

It is a very good and simple program to follow.

I have just XxCloned my entire HDD; however, only one program did not like the 'change', and that was SpySweeper™ by Webroot® Software.
This might be attributed to the fact that the subscription is due for renewal at the end of the month....it doesn't matter, as I have uninstalled it anyway and will rely entirely on AVG™'s Internet Security Suite and Ad-Aware™.

Thanks for the great effort and explanations.

JohnthePilot

Thanks Dave. Glad you were able to follow the instructions OK. It's much better when someone else tries it because if I've made a mistake, they will pick it up if they are following step-by-step. As I use it on a regular basis (have now got the Pro version) I was thinking of adding a few other things into the article, such as using the alternative wallpaper feature (great if you get confused about which drive you are on) and the Quick Start Disc.

Regards,
John.

carsey

Make sure not to cross feature between pro and free edition John

JohnthePilot

Don't worry, I shan't

mcharley94

Awesome tool and a great detailed description....

Many thanks for taking the time to write this....I will use this many times over I am sure.

Regards,

Mark

JohnthePilot

Thanks for that Mark. Have you tried it yet?

mcharley94

Yes I have, Last night just before I posted here. I went from an old 13GB tester HD to a 160GB HD.

I do have an issue with the new Western Digital EIDE HD though. As I stated it is a 160GB HD but it only partitioned out at 127GB. I did some research and understand this is common. It was recommended that I download WD's software to address this and I did but I got the same results as I did with Disk Management in XP.

It is in a very old system that I built years ago and just revamped ...an ABIT BE6II. I flashed the BIOS thinking this would resolve the nonrecognition of the HD's size but it did not. I am thinking that perhaps the MB just does not support anything larger?

Not a big deal, I expected to get ripped a few GB, but not 33GB Maybe I'll mention the issue in the HD section and see if the gurus there can come up with some suggestions.

Thanks Again

JohnthePilot

Hi Mark,
Have you installed SP2 and is the disk formatted as NTFS?
John.

mcharley94

Yes and Yes

XP Home w/SP2