new computer, how to transfer hard drive contents

the last time, 3 years ago, someone wise said just leave everything on your old computer and start anew. 3 years ago, that's just what I did. I have my computer set up the way I want it now and redownloading everything does not seem like a good option anymore. I don't want to start over again because it is soooooooooooooooo much of a gigantic hassle.
Any new software that will do the job for me without a huge investment in time etc. When I bought a new hard drive before, several years ago, the computer store guys did it for me. Surely things have improved on the home front.

lots of hardrives have software to do that for you . and if i was you id use the new hardrive as the primarty sionce old one is 3 years old its probaly a lot slower.if the hardrive wasnt sold with software i like nortons ghost

opps didnt read post corectly sorry direagard above info

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

what i'm trying to do is transfer virtually everything,files programs, plug ins, pictures, software, desktop, settings everything, am I dreaming?

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

how about adding old hardrive to new pc? as slave

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I think what you are asking is to transfer only registered/installed programs and data to a new drive with a new OS and such (new OS and such that you would like to keep on the new system?).

I would be interested in seeing an answer too...

The only way I know of is to make a bit image copy of your drive using something like Norton Ghost. And then use a partition program to resize it to the new drive capacity (assuming it is larger than your current drive).

And, I assume that this not what you were asking for?

There are bits and pieces that can do some of this. For example transfer your files, settings and bookmarks, in XP, under SYSTEM TOOLS is "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard".

I assume that it will do some of what you want--but it will probably not move registered programs (and software keys) from one system to another. But it might be worth a look to see if it does anything useful for you.

-Bill

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

What I would do is first install the second hard drive as a slave to the one you already have. If you don't know how to do that, let me know and I can explain it to you. Then I would install Norton Ghost to the first hard drive. The newest version gives you the option to make a direct copy of your existing hard drive to a second one. I don't think you need to deal with any of the partition stuff that BB mentioned above if you have the 05 version of Ghost. (There is a big difference in ease of use between Ghost 04 and 05) Select your current hard drive as the source and the new hard drive as the destination and make the copy. Next, shut down the computer, open it up and remove the old hard drive, install the new one as the master and then reboot the computer. If all is well, it should boot just like it used to with the old drive.

Hope this helps

-Blake

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

yup i would clone it with ghost, it would allow you to set up the partitioning, in there while doing it.
but i would do it from dos.

do it as the slave, then switcheroo them it will copy EVERYTHING lock stock and barrel, except if you dont set the options right it might not do the MBR thing so a XP like system boots. simple enough to chage, but that could be an only issue you could have.

Then you MUST switch the position (either in hardware, or in the bios), or Xp wont find the boot disk via the boot.ini. the boot.ini points the opearting system to the correct disk and partition. so after the clone, you would want to put the drive you intend to boot to, IN that same position.

Also, i wouldnt TRUST anything. i would first use ghost to make a backup of the system partition on CD, and nero or any other CD maker to make full backups of my data.

i always lose data when i THINK i have backups out the wazooo. so even though i have the same data on 3 drives by the time of the changover, i am sweating when something goes wrong, and i didnt write out 10 23c cds before starting. $2.30 of insurance, you could refer back to at anytime.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

When I was upgrading a small hard drive to a larger one several years ago, there was a local company that transferred everything from my old hard drive to the new one, everything intact and everything was the same, I just had a larger hard drive with everything from the old one, same programs, plugins, desktop, just like before. I'm sure there are a lot of people that would buy new computers more often if this was easily done. I'm thinking of getting a new computer but am reluctant because of the hassle and time it would take to try to duplicate all of the software registrations, numbers, codes, upgrade files and on and on.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I have a simple program I used for transferring entire win9x OSes to another drive. You have to partition and format the drive then put the new drive as slave and run this from windoze and it will copy everything including hidden files/folders just like a stealth xcopy does. It is smart enough to know not to copy the swap file.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

This can be real trouble. If you are going to mirror a hard drive onto a new larger one and stick it in a new computer you could have total disaster with Windows. Windows will attempt to reconfigure itself for all the new hardware it will find and could just blow up. This is especially true if the OS that is on the old drive is a few years old. It might not recognize the hardware in the new computer correctly.

The best thing will be to install your old drive as a second drive and carefully go though and copy your data over to the new one but install all your programs from scratch.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

Here is the Microsoft way. I have used it to transfer info across a network from old computer to new one and it worked well. I think it's mostly for Windows settings and a few windows programs like IE and Outlook Express. It worked very well for transferring e-mail for example.

If you don't have a network connection between the two computers you can store the info on a removable drive using this program and then install it on the new computer.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I don't know how much information you're talking about, but it could be done with a flash drive? They make them pretty large....

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

YEah, a major question is whether you are staying with the same OS and and CPU.

If you love everything about your old setup except the hardware, you can try someything like partition magic to copy the drive. It will even work with different sized drives. Expect to de-install and resinstall drivers for all the hardware, including the motherboard drivers.

If you are changing your OS, well, good luck. Someone may know how to upgrade from 98 to XP without having to start over, but I seem to recall that the common advice was to start from scratch.

Daniel

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

really if its a hardware change, then clean install is the ONLY way, moving your stuff over to it, and reinstalling as nessisary.
a transfer to new hardware, without cleanup can cost you seconds each boot, for the mess that is left.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

really if its a hardware change, then clean install is the ONLY way, moving your stuff over to it, and reinstalling as nessisary.
a transfer to new hardware, without cleanup can cost you seconds each boot, for the mess that is left.
then if its a chipset change, you could get more instability, even if it operated. no use adding in more possibilities for non-operation.

if its just a sigle drive then the only possible issue would be reactivation if you went over on the hardware hash.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I would try Norton Ghost or Partition Magic. Install the new hard drive from the new computer into the old machine as a secondary master (or slave) and clone the old hard drive on a new, separate (bootable), primary partition. Then put it back in the new machine. Like Chris said, there's a chance Windows will self destruct trying to find all the new hardware, but you can minimize that by starting up in safe and going in and removing all the old components first (in the old windows...not physically). You'll still have the new OS on the original partition on the new hard drive with all the stuff the new computer came with in case this fails.

Honestly, despite the hassle, you're way better off just installing your old hard drive on the new machine as a secondary hard drive and using the new OS on the new hard drive on the new machine. Just move your data over to the new hard drive at your leisure and install all the programs freshly. They're certainly gunked up to some extent on your old machine by now, as is the OS.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

WARNING! WARNING! Norton ghost does not work with NTFS formatted drives, use FAT32. I am currently reformatting and reloading everything because I tried to ghost an NTFS partition and now I can't even read the drive.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I agree with Stingray that the best way to go is using a clean install. I assume one came with your new computer.

For that reason I even more strongly recommend the Microsoft utility that I mentioned above. It will allow you to move across some of the setings you have. IIRC, you will still need to re-install the programs from your old computer, but I recommend doing that anyway.

I have always started over from scratch and done a clean install of the operating system when I have bought a new computer or upgraded the motherboard/processor and that is my strong recommendation. It pains me to recommend a M$ wizard as I think most of them are garbage but if you use this one carefully, that is, choose only those things you know you want to transfer, it will do the job.

Re: new computer, how to transfer hard drive conte

I'm not sure about transfering the innards of Windows, but there are some versions of UNIX utilities like TAR that have been ported to win32. TAR allows you to create an archive and move it to a new location without altering filetimes, permissions and other things that generally may break multi-user OSs. The GNU version of TAR for win32 is free.