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flintstone mop
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« on: December 05, 2008, 04:50:44 PM »

Sorry All,
I want to install a larger HDD in an existing computer. I would like the new larger drive be the main drive. I have heard that there is software to "image/ghost/mirror" the entire system over to the new drive. When done, you remove the old drive and the new drive becomes C:\

OR an uglier way. Backup ALL files. Install the new drive, format, re-install the OS and RE-load ALL of those programs I no longer have discs for.

OR install the new drive as an extra drive to handle the files. The c:\ drive runs the programs. I can't believe that our "main" computer at home is only 40GB.

Fred
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Fred KC4MOP
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« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2008, 04:56:16 PM »

I want to install a larger HDD in an existing computer. I would like the new larger drive be the main drive. I have heard that there is software to "image/ghost/mirror" the entire system over to the new drive. When done, you remove the old drive and the new drive becomes C:\

Fred,

You can use either of these methods:

  • Use Norton Ghost to create an image of the old drive, and then replace that on the new drive
  • Use GNU/Linux to image one drive onto the other.

I hope this helps.

73,

Bill, W1AC
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kc2ifr
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« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2008, 05:00:11 PM »

Install both drives in your puter, copy everything from your old drive to your new drive, then rename the drives and leave both. Then delete the stuff on your old drive or reformat it.
Bill
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« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2008, 05:32:28 PM »

afaik,

unless you use a "ghost" type program to migrate, you will need to reinstall all your programs for them to run, or at least most of them. Some might run without an install, but most not, especially the ones that needed a key to activate...

it is easy enough to make the old drive the "slave" drive and then just put the installed programs on the new disc and use the old to hold your other files...

the drive usually has a set of pins on the rear with a label on top showing how to configure it as "auto", "master" or "slave". You want slave.

doing it this way, there is not much of a problem moving from one drive to the other when you want to move things from one to the other. IF you can put each drive on a separate IDE (assuming IDE) controller, I think that it runs faster than if they share the same cable & controller (on the board it is...

every time I have upgraded computers so far that's the way I have done it.

I usually have a folder where I save all my downloaded application programs. I keep the CDs of other application programs handy as well. That way making the new set up run like the old usually only takes a few hours (good grief, ya'd think they could do it better, eh??)

 Grin

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Pete, WA2CWA
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« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2008, 05:32:45 PM »

Sorry All,
I want to install a larger HDD in an existing computer. I would like the new larger drive be the main drive. I have heard that there is software to "image/ghost/mirror" the entire system over to the new drive. When done, you remove the old drive and the new drive becomes C:\

OR an uglier way. Backup ALL files. Install the new drive, format, re-install the OS and RE-load ALL of those programs I no longer have discs for.

OR install the new drive as an extra drive to handle the files. The c:\ drive runs the programs. I can't believe that our "main" computer at home is only 40GB.

Fred

The DELL I'm on now only has a 40 GB drive. Got it 8 years ago. To save a lot of P & M, the original drive remained the boot drive. All the data files and directories from whatever program, were moved to a newly installed additional 200 GB internal drive. Any new program installations are also being installed on the new drive. To me, this was the cheapest and least aggravating way to get more space without worrying about existing boot sectors, existing windows registry items, and probably several other less obvious possible issues. Watch the configuration of the new drive as identified in the drive's instructions.
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ab3al
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« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2008, 05:55:31 PM »

fred the only thing i worry about is that if your pc came with a 40 gig drive that makes is quite old.  I am guessing win 98 maybe xp. northon ghost works ok fine but the real problem is that on the old machines the would not recognize a drive any bigger.  there was a bit of software that came with the drives that tricked the bios into thinking the drive was smaller but really told the os that it was bigger.  current versions of ghost dont like this very much.  My recommendation.  go to tiger direct.com and buy an empty usb harddrive encloser.  put the old drive in it.  when you are done transfering the important files off of it you now have a portable hard drive. (always handy)

second reason not to use ghost.  Microsoft actually sends out tech bullitens annualy stating that you should wipe your harddrive clean once a year and install windows from scratch.  If you ghost your old install to the new drive you bring along an old install that needs refreshed anyway.  hows that for confidence.

100 percent linux here for 4 months now.  no viruses not popups no reeboots.
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flintstone mop
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« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2008, 10:25:13 PM »

Thanks to everyone.
I keep forgetting that this computer technology moves pretty fast. As long as this drive is operating and no problems with bad sectors or clusters, I'll get one of those USB external dirves and convert the USB ports to 2.0 for the speed and dump the pictures and files to the external drive.

I think that I can disable the on-board USB 1.0 through the bios and install drivers for the PCI USB 2.0 board I have. It will give me 4- 2.0 USB ports. There's a big difference in the transfer rate @ 2.0.

The last attempt was to disable the on-board 1.0 USB from the Control Panel. The next time the computer would boot up, it would re-install the 1.0 and then the IRQ wars began with the 2.0 board.
I'll give it a try, unless someone here has some thoughts on this.

Thanks

Fred
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Fred KC4MOP
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« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2008, 10:31:02 PM »

Why would you want to disable the USB 1.0 ports.  The more ports, the better.  You can use the slower ports for peripherals that don't need as much speed if you run out of the faster ports.  Huh

Copying an image to a new drive is not too bad.  The real challange is moving an XP image to a different computer, and reactivating it.  (Requires rebuilding the hardware abstraction layer.) I recently did this before I sold my XP laptop.   I didn't have the time to figure out what programs and data I needed , so I now have an image of my old laptop I can boot on my desktop computer.
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steve_qix
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« Reply #8 on: December 06, 2008, 02:15:59 AM »

I deal with this issue on a daily basis.  There are several possiblilties, however the most important thing to consider now is that you probably don't have a good (or any?) backup.  Just thought I'd mention it also.

There are several ways to make the new drive bootable.

1) Ghost or Gnu Image (as was previously mentioned).  This is how I do it.

2) Run NTBACKUP and backup the system - probably saving the backup image on the new drive - including the system state (very important).   You then have some choices.  You can do a quickie install of the operating system onto the new drive, then do a "restore" of the original, backed up system and overwrite the new installation.  Nice thing about doing this or the image (ghost) is you don't have to resintall anything!

3) I've actually created duplicate systems using xcopy, however this CANNOT be done against a running operating system.  You would need to put both hard drives in another system, or somehow boot an alternative O/S.  Windows locks critical files against against all access (including reads) (files like the registry files), so your copy will not work if you attempt to copy a booted system.

Do your self a favor and spend a few bucks on a dedicated, external USB2 hard drive that is used solely for backups.  Use NTBACKUP to backup the running system.  Optionally, ntbackup can be used to back up all of the files, althrough I prefer to use XCOPY because I get a readable, usable duplicate of the original files and file system, and I do not need to use  NTBACKUP to read what I want from the backed up image file.  NTBACKUP will be required to back up the operating system and system state.

Regards,

Steve


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WB2YGF
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« Reply #9 on: December 06, 2008, 07:56:57 AM »

While I have copies of ghost, I have not used it.  Two products I HAVE used are:

* Acronus (now called Acronus True Image)
* Norton Save and Restore 2

Both these products backup a true image while the OS is running and both have CD recovery disks that will do the restore without having to reinstall the operating system.  Under the right conditions, (hardware compatibility) the restore program can pull the image off a USB drive or even from a location across the network. (I find it is easier just to use another local drive.) With Acronus, you can mount the backup image as a drive making it easy to restore individual files.

Both products are under $50 and well worth it.  Acronus also has a product call Migrate Easy for $39 that is dedicated to doing drive upgrades and walking you through the process.

The professional version, Acronus Workstation, ($79) has "universal restore" meaning you can restore to different hardware or to a virtual machine (or even convert images directly to virtual machine images).  Another cool feature (I have not tried) is the ability to boot the image from the the recovery application and actually use the computer you are recovering while it is restoring itself in the background.

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Sam KS2AM
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« Reply #10 on: December 06, 2008, 12:17:01 PM »

Microsoft actually sends out tech bullitens annualy stating that you should wipe your harddrive clean once a year and install windows from scratch.

Thats pretty funny. Where, pray tell, could someone see one of these Microsoft originated "bullitens" that advise users to wipe the HD and reinstall Windows every year ?


Sam
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Mike/W8BAC
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« Reply #11 on: December 06, 2008, 07:38:32 PM »

Quote
* Acronus (now called Acronus True Image)

John and Mop and the rest,

I have been using Acronus True Image on my 3 PC's with great success for several years now. It is a really fine product.

I put a dedicated drive in one machine on my network of three and do full backup's often. This saved my bacon when the HD in the laptop failed. After installing a new hard drive in the laptop I slipped in the recovery disk and found the backup HD on the network. Restoring the image to the new drive was completely uneventful. The beauty of the restoration was absolutely everything worked. All of the programs previously installed worked without authentication. All files in place. Even every personal setting was in place. It was as if the hard drive failure never happened.

Acronus True Image IS as close as it gets to a perfect backup package.

For you Mopman. Get a copy of Acronus True Image. Use a second computer (hopefully you have one available) and install the software on each.

On the second computer set up a partition on the C hard drive for a compressed backup of the hard drive you want to replace and make the recovery disks. Acronus will walk you through the entire process.

When the backup is finished and verified, pop in the new hard drive and set the computer to boot from whatever drive the restore disk fits. Boot the computer and Acronus will walk you through the restore.When finished reset the computer to boot from C drive and your in business as they say.

Have fun and if you have probelms, drop me a PM.

Mike
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k4kyv
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« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2008, 07:53:49 PM »

I purchased a brand new copy of Acronis True Image some time ago for about $12, but haven't yet installed it. I did install the M$ NTBACKUP.nsi utility into my XP Home Edition, but so far I simply manually drag and drop copies of stuff like bookmarks, My Documents and other data files that I want to back up, either into my external hard drive or into a thumb drive, and rely on System Restore for backing up the registry and system files.

I take it that Acronis is less a pain in the arse to use to back up system files than is the M$ Backup utility.

I plan to install Acronis and try it out now that I have more time to play with the computer, with it getting too cold for much outside work on the homestead.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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Mike/W8BAC
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« Reply #13 on: December 06, 2008, 08:25:16 PM »

Don,

It used to be a backup was for your files. The stuff you really wanted to keep in case your hard drive failed and nothing wrong with that at all. I do that as well. I spread backed up files on every drive and even on thumb drives just in case.

As you know most computers don't come with a complete, licensed copy of windows to let you start over if a drive fails. Your first move in that case is a big buck investment just to get back to square one (NO, your M$ recovery discs won't reinstall windows). Than comes all the hours of tailoring the operating system to your liking and installing all of your software and files.

With an Acronus backup it's an hour or so and EVERYTHING! is back as it was yesterday. How cool is that? Time to get busy Don. Install Acronus and rest easy.

Mike
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Steve - WB3HUZ
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« Reply #14 on: December 06, 2008, 09:04:34 PM »

Or just run Level 1 Raid and no back ups needed.
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WB2YGF
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« Reply #15 on: December 06, 2008, 09:38:23 PM »

Or just run Level 1 Raid and no back ups needed.
That won't always help.  If you have a corrupted OS or an accidently deleted file, you will have a perfect copy of the problem on the other drive. Smiley
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« Reply #16 on: December 06, 2008, 09:45:17 PM »


As you know most computers don't come with a complete, licensed copy of windows to let you start over if a drive fails.

Ghod knows I'm no friend of Steve Balmer, but running unlicensed copies of Windoze isn't a good idea. In the first place, you're denied access to most of the updates that licensed users get automatically. As if that weren't bad enough, the M$ update site will poison machines that don't have proper credentials, reducing them to very basic functionality such as web access.

Image backups are just one option in a disaster-recovery plan, and you don't have to buy proprietary software to have a reliable process in place. The first step, however, is not to backup, but to make sure your machine is running fully licensed software. Why invite trouble?

73,

Bill W1AC
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WB2YGF
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« Reply #17 on: December 06, 2008, 09:58:23 PM »


As you know most computers don't come with a complete, licensed copy of windows to let you start over if a drive fails.

Ghod knows I'm no friend of Steve Balmer, but running unlicensed copies of Windoze isn't a good idea. In the first place, you're denied access to most of the updates that licensed users get automatically. As if that weren't bad enough, the M$ update site will poison machines that don't have proper credentials, reducing them to very basic functionality such as web access.

Image backups are just one option in a disaster-recovery plan, and you don't have to buy proprietary software to have a reliable process in place. The first step, however, is not to backup, but to make sure your machine is running fully licensed software. Why invite trouble?

73,

Bill W1AC
I think what he meant to say is:  most computer don't come with the Windows install disk.  The license (COA) is the sticker on the machine.  The code on the sticker will work for activation if you borrow an install disk with the same OS version.  Also, the manufacturer may send you a disk if you beg.  Dell stopped including the install disk for free.  I always pay the extra $5 or $10 and add it to the cart when ordering.
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« Reply #18 on: December 06, 2008, 10:22:05 PM »

W1AC Bill,
Please read my comment again.

Quote
As you know most computers don't come with a complete, licensed copy of windows to let you start over if a drive fails. Your first move in that case is a big buck investment just to get back to square one (NO, your M$ recovery discs won't reinstall windows).

If I didn't make myself clear, I'm saying, For many years now when you buy a computer you have a licensed copy on your computer of windows BUT the disc's provided by your computers manufacturer do not contain a complete copy of windows. You cannot reload windows on a new hard drive from those disc's. In fact you can do very little if a hard drive acts up and you have to replace it or god for bid a virus corrupts something. Those worthless M$ recovery discs are JUNK. I think we all know running unlicensed copies of software isn't OK, Thanks!

Quote
Image backups are just one option in a disaster-recovery plan, and you don't have to buy proprietary software to have a reliable process in place. The first step, however, is not to backup, but to make sure your machine is running fully licensed software. Why invite trouble?

Mopman isn't trying to recover from disaster. He is looking for an easy way to put his operating system and files on a new disc. Stay focused Bill and please offer your best advice.

I strayed a bit from the thread and talked about backup's and other stuff but I tried my best to tie it together for Fred. Please tell us exactly how it's done.

Mike
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WB2YGF
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« Reply #19 on: December 06, 2008, 10:47:34 PM »

One thing not mentioned is that many new computers don't have OS disks but they DO have a recovery partition.  Before I sold my Dell laptop, I booted into the recovery program.  The program runs a cut-down version of Norton Ghost.  Initialize the recovery, and the system partition is overwritten with the original image exactly as shipped from the factory.  NEVER use this method of recovery if you don't have a backup of your data as it will be overwritten, but its a nice way to get a computer ready for resale or if you just want a fresh start.

When I backed up my laptop with Acronus, I backed up the recovery partition as well and it was restored to the new drive.
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k4kyv
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« Reply #20 on: December 07, 2008, 04:35:28 AM »

I use a Dell Dimension 8250. 5 or 6 years old.

I don't have a Windows XP disc with the Micro$oft label, but a disc with the Dell logo.  The label says:


Quote
                                    Operating System

                                    Reinstallation CD
                        Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
                            Including Service Pack 1

Only use this CD to reinstall the operating system on a Dell computer.
 This CD is not for reinstallation of programs or drivers.  For distribution
 only with a new Dell computer.

How can I tell whether it is a complete OS install disc or just a recovery disc?
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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WB2YGF
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« Reply #21 on: December 07, 2008, 07:56:45 AM »

Yes, that's a typical Dell disk with the full (OEM version) Windows XP OS install files on it.  There should be another disk with the Dell hardware specific drivers that need to be installed after the OS is installed.

Personally, I have yet to see a Dell recovery disk without the OS, but then I always order the OS so I guess I don't know what I would get if I didn't. Smiley

I once worked on a friend's Compaq, and the recovery disk was a restore image instead of the OS. The bad thing about that is you can't do an XP repair install, which is a very good method of recovering from a corrupted OS with (almost) everything still intact.
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k4kyv
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Don
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« Reply #22 on: December 07, 2008, 01:23:45 PM »

Yes, that's a typical Dell disk with the full (OEM version) Windows XP OS install files on it.  There should be another disk with the Dell hardware specific drivers that need to be installed after the OS is installed.

I thought it probably was.  My disc has the XP backup utility on it, which for some reason isn't installed by default on the home edition.  According to the M$ website, the "recovery" discs usually don't include the backup utility, but it's available online as a download.

And yes, the drivers disc came with mine.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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WB2YGF
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« Reply #23 on: December 07, 2008, 01:53:21 PM »

I believe the MS Backup is a "lite" version of the Veritas backup software which was marketed by Stompsoft as Backup MyPC.  Veritas was later assimilated by Symantec and I think they killed it off.  Anyway, the Veritas backup is a file based backup.  It's certainly better than no backup at all. The restore process requires a reinstall of the OS first, then the backup software, then rebuilding the backup catalog.  The restore of the latest system files over the old XP install system files almost always results in problems that can take hours to troubleshoot. (I know, because I have done it several times.)

A bare metal image restore like Acronus or Symantec Save and Restore is oh so much cleaner.
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k4kyv
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« Reply #24 on: December 07, 2008, 02:52:04 PM »


A bare metal image restore like Acronus or Symantec Save and Restore is oh so much cleaner.

The CD I have is Acronis True Image 9.0.  I assume someone made a typo and that mine is the same thing?

My external hard drive came with backup software, but apparently it is also a file-based program that backs up data files but doesn't save a bootable set of the Windows system files. However, the backup image with the Mac OSX is supposed to be bootable.  I installed only the driver for the HDD, but not the backup software.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
Licensed since 1959 and not happy to be back on AM...    Never got off AM in the first place.

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This message was typed using the DVORAK keyboard layout.
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