Copying system HDD to new HDD

1078 Views 5 Replies 2 Participants Last post by linderman, Sep 24, 2005

LBuck1972

Discussion Starter · Sep 19, 2005

AMD Athlon 64FX55
Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 mobo
Radeon X800XT (AGP)
1GB RAM
200gb Seagate IDE Primary master boot HDD

I currently have the above PC setup with the 200GB 200gb Seagate IDE being the boot drive and loc of all programs and the seagate seems to be a bottleneck in the system performance. I am looking to replace it with a WD Raptor 74GB , or maybe even two in a RAID0 array funds permitting. My question is how feasible would it be to copy my existing boot drive, operating system and all, across from the Primary Master Seagate to the Raptor, and is it as easy to do so onto a RAID0 array as a single SATA Raptor? I'd like to avoid a reinstall of WinXP if I can as my WinXP CD is pre SP1.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to any software that can do this? Is Norton Ghost able to do this and is it any good?

Also, I would be hanging on to my 200GB (or a 300gb IDE maxtor I have spare at the moment which is faster but I've had smaller ones fail) and use it purely for data and/or backing up the RAID if i go for RAID. I hear rumours that you can have problems when you have a Primary master that you arn't booting from? Would it have to be a Pr slave?

Looks quite simple on paper. What pitfalls should I be looking for if I try to do this?

Lee

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linderman

· #2 · Sep 20, 2005

Welcome to TSF:

go to xxclone.com sign up for free test drive / its kindergarten easy !!

after you download the prog / the prog will clone your entire existing boot drive to your new drive / all from within a windows GUI !!! no more norton ghost tutorials for this dude and no more DOS either !!!

after you download xxclone open the prog / there are only two windows to work in / the main windows has you select if you want the clone to be bootable (yes you do !!) and select the target drive (new drive) and select your source drive (existing boot drive) and then at the bottom right had corner of the main window there is an advanced button / click on it / in there you must give a check mark to three items boot.ini boot something ?? and write MBR

then just hit the button to GIT R DONE

dont hesitate to ask more questions

enjoy !!

Joe

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LBuck1972

Discussion Starter · #3 · Sep 20, 2005

Thanks Linderman - that looks simple enough. Probably work for the backups as well so I might even end up buying a Licence if it works out.

I havn't actually ordered the drive(s) yet but probably will soon. Got to ensure I've got all my cooling arrangements in hand first.

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linderman

· #4 · Sep 20, 2005

I have never used a cloning prog as easy and effortless as this one !! you can even write an auto exec line command and it will do the full back-up automatically without user intervention ????? never seen that before !!

regards

joe

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LBuck1972

Discussion Starter · #5 · Sep 24, 2005

Well blow me if it didnt work!

I just installed the two Raptors, without touching any other drive, set up the RAID0 thing, which was a bit confusing, then did the XXclone as Linderman said. Then restarted and went into the BIOS put the RAID0 at the top of the list of bootables and it restarted putting the RAID in as C: and booting off it,and the "old boot" down to G:. Didnt have to remove my primary master or slave.

Cant believe how that smoothly that went! Thanks Linderman.

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linderman

· #6 · Sep 24, 2005

LBUCK

Glad to hear all went well for you !! Job Well done !!

dont be a stranger stop in often and share your raid experience with others

regards

joe

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