New Hard drive

Tony-C · 06-17-2008, 01:27 AM

Apparently my old hard drive is having some read disk error so I'm considering buying a new hard disk for it, I really don't know if it can be fixed. Either way that's not the point. My question is since it's a new hard drive it won't have an OS, right? So does that mean I'll have to boot it from windows xp install cd? The problem here is I think my cd drive is broken, so I would have to buy a new one as well. Does anyone now more or less how that process takes place (booting for a blank 'new' drive). Thanks for any help it is appreciated.

Tumbleweed36 · 06-17-2008, 02:07 AM

First of all, there are no guarantees with this one. However, almost always, if your regular drive works and you put in a new drive as a slave, you can download and run a program called XXClone (follow instructions carefully to make it bootable), and it will make an exact image of the drive you are copying from. Then, remove the old drive and the new one (make it a master) should function normally with no loss of data. For best results, if the old drive is an IDE, then I suggest you get another IDE drive to clone to. The nice thing about this, is that you can try it and if you have a failure or it does not work, then you still have the original to boot from so you can try again.

Tony-C · 06-17-2008, 11:40 AM

Assuming when I boot from the old drive I can't even get past the boot screen? I'm screwed. It makes this weird sound like *tak* *tak* *tak* trying to read from it. Also I forgot to clarify it's a laptop how could I get the computer up and running using the new blank hard disk.

06-17-2008, 01:27 AM	#1 (permalink)
Tony-C Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 15 OS: Vista SP1	New Hard drive Apparently my old hard drive is having some read disk error so I'm considering buying a new hard disk for it, I really don't know if it can be fixed. Either way that's not the point. My question is since it's a new hard drive it won't have an OS, right? So does that mean I'll have to boot it from windows xp install cd? The problem here is I think my cd drive is broken, so I would have to buy a new one as well. Does anyone now more or less how that process takes place (booting for a blank 'new' drive). Thanks for any help it is appreciated.

06-17-2008, 02:07 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 18,030 OS: XP Professional	Re: New Hard drive First of all, there are no guarantees with this one. However, almost always, if your regular drive works and you put in a new drive as a slave, you can download and run a program called XXClone (follow instructions carefully to make it bootable), and it will make an exact image of the drive you are copying from. Then, remove the old drive and the new one (make it a master) should function normally with no loss of data. For best results, if the old drive is an IDE, then I suggest you get another IDE drive to clone to. The nice thing about this, is that you can try it and if you have a failure or it does not work, then you still have the original to boot from so you can try again. __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread. Last edited by Tumbleweed36; 06-17-2008 at 02:08 AM.

06-17-2008, 11:40 AM	#3 (permalink)
Tony-C Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 15 OS: Vista SP1	Re: New Hard drive Assuming when I boot from the old drive I can't even get past the boot screen? I'm screwed. It makes this weird sound like tak tak tak trying to read from it. Also I forgot to clarify it's a laptop how could I get the computer up and running using the new blank hard disk.