Transfering files

BDRBDR
edited September 2003 in Science & Tech
Ok guys, I'm being lazy here. I have a tower with 2 drives, a 40g and an 80g.
I need to use one of them in my next build and I prefer to leave the 80 gigger in the current tower. The 40 being Master and 80 being Slave.

Problem being I have most all my programs on the 40 gigger, and want to just transfer them without having to re-install them.

Some things I just dragged onto the larger drive, but I don't want have to move everything that way.

So.. I ran XP's files and settings wizard and saved the files to the larger drive. (I also have a backup of the 40 g on the 80g).

I already have XP installed on the 80g, so I should be able to just continue the Files and Settings transfer on it when I switch out the drives, right?

I'm just trying to save some time and not have to re-install everything. :buck:

Comments

  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited September 2003
    Well as far as I know, if you installed a complete new copy of XP then you would have to reinstall all of your programs becasue there isn't any record of the programs in the new registery.
    There may be a way to transfer the registery from one install of XP to another but I think that thats pretty hard core hacking stuff.
    I can't imagine that XP would allow you to just copy the registery from one install of XP to another... but I'm not an expert either.

    A better way would have to use ghost or drive image and copy over your whole 40gb drive to the 80gb drive then situatied everything on the 80gb as you wanted it and then used a program like partition magic to merge or resize your partitions on the 80gb drive then you wouldn't have had to re-install all of your programs.
    Are you trying to run 2 installations of XP on the same rig if so that might cause problems.
    Usualy you would hide the partition on the drive that has the copy of XP you don't want to use...

    "g"
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    Most programs have registry entries and some work w/o them. I guess you could copy and try them and the ones that don't work, just reinstall them and it should work like before.

    [EDIT]gtghm beat me to it :crazy:[/EDIT]
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    you need norton ghost. there are other freeware apps that clone drives too, i just don't know/remember there names right now. I find the file and settings transfer wizard only works when going from one computer to an entire other computer, but of course YMMV
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited September 2003
    double vision... lol
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    I would guess he has "stuff" on the 80gb HDD so I don't think imaging would work unless the stuff doesn't ocuppy alot of space, you transfer everything to the 40gb HDD, partition it and then do the clone. I prefer this method since Partition Magic hasn't been kind to me :(
  • BDRBDR
    edited September 2003
    I have a small amount of stuff on the 80gigger.
    Nothing that can't be redone though. I've just used it as a back up drive for mps, images and well.. backups.

    Partition Magic hasn't been kind to me either, so I really would rather not play with it.

    Ah well.. I'll let you know how it goes.

    I'm pulling the 40 gigger out in a few.
  • edcentricedcentric near Milwaukee, Wisconsin Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    Clear the 80
    use a disk replication utility to make a dulicate of the 40 on the 80
    pull the 40

    I have had trouble with this same move in the past. I had a freeware utility, but now I can't find it. sorry.

    is your avitar a keyboard? ??
  • BDRBDR
    edited September 2003
    I already pulled the 40 out, and the 80 is just throwing up stop errors, so I'm reformating and re-installing.
    So much for being lazy and saving time. :buck:

    Yep, avi is kb. My EluminX.
    Love it. :)
  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    i didn't say partition magic. it ate my drive too once, i'm never using it again. i said norton ghost. that just clones one drive to another, a bit for bit copy
  • BDRBDR
    edited September 2003
    It's ok Kanezfan. I just stated that about PM because I have PM, and haven't had much luck using it.

    I don't have Ghost, and was just looking for a easy (lazy) way to do this today.

    OS is now installed and I'm dl'ing windows updates.

    But, thank you. I may look into getting Ghost for future use.
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    kanezfan said
    i didn't say partition magic. it ate my drive too once, i'm never using it again. i said norton ghost. that just clones one drive to another, a bit for bit copy
    The thing is that he has stuff backed up on the 80gb HDD and Norton Ghost overwrites the whole partition/drive so he would lose everything on the drive.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited September 2003
    I have used PM 8.0 only on many XP boxes, both to resize and to copy stuff. First, I am betting your 80 gigger has space free. Make an open space for as much data as you have on the partition on the 40, leave it empty, and then go to using new drive. You WILL get to reinstall programs, but your work data will be there as a logical drive that way-- technically, assuming you are gonna reinstall programs anyway (with stop errors I WOULD), and given that you DO get to reauthorize it anyway with new hardware built in, you could jumper the 80 master, the 40 slave, and copy what you want off the 40 after booting from the 80-- EXCEPT for programs not in install archives or on legit CDs. Unless the Stop error is a HD stop code, in which case the 40 with the registry might be beyond use,
    you can copy all non-pure program files from the 40 to the 80. The registry has a stop notice in it, feed that full copy of registry to the new XP and it will likely go bonkers trying to figure out what it has while noticing STOP error is no longer true.
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited September 2003
    Black Hawk said
    kanezfan said
    i didn't say partition magic. it ate my drive too once, i'm never using it again. i said norton ghost. that just clones one drive to another, a bit for bit copy
    The thing is that he has stuff backed up on the 80gb HDD and Norton Ghost overwrites the whole partition/drive so he would lose everything on the drive.

    Not necessarly, :grin, if he were to partition the 80gb drive into 2 40's then move the backed up stuff to the last partition. Then you can do a partition to partition transfer and that would not do anything to the information on the last 40gb... However, he has said that hes already re-installed XP and is going about a new install... Probably not a bad call either if its been awhile... Gives him the oppertunity to make changes to the over all system that maybe he was stuck with. Also cleans out the registery and stuff... :grin

    Kinda weird that PM would eat a drive or cause problems... I've used PM6 and 7 and never had a problem, except when I was using long rounded cables or just plain bad IDE cables.
    Not saying that it didn't happen, just sayin that its weird thats all...

    Cheers,
    "g"
  • BDRBDR
    edited September 2003
    Stop error was for HD on boot up. "to prevent damage to your hard drive... yada yada.. "

    I reformated, re-installed, and it's running F@H.


    Btw, the 80 gig is only a couple weeks old. I only had about 4 gigs of files on it.

    I have the files backed up on another drive, so i can just copy them off the network.

    It was the programs that I didn't want to have to re-install, but it's a done deal now. :thumbsup:
  • DexterDexter Vancouver, BC Canada
    edited September 2003
    I like PowerQuest's Drive Image, which was mentioned by gtghm. I use it at my office, works great, and has greta hard disk tools as well. It costs about $50 - 80, so if price is an issue, try a freeware app.

    Cheers,

    Dexter...
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