tangentray
Adept
Recently due to the huge drop in prices of hdd-s many of us bought newer hdd-s. Some of us, like myself, would want to relocate the boot os partition from our old hdd to the newer one, and since we want our current os settings to be same, because it takes a hell lot of unique customizations and installations to get to the current settings, a new os installation from scratch is the last option we would want to explore. There are a lot of guides on this available on the net. Please feel free to go through them. I had read a few and finally figured out the following to be one of the most painless methods.
I had windows XP sp2 and 3 hard disks with the following configuration:
Seagate Sata 80GB:
Partition 1: 16 GB: OS : FAT32 :C
Partition 2: 30 GB: Data : NTFS :E
Partition 3: 30 GB: Data : NTFS :F
Seagate Sata 500GB:
Partition 1: 60 GB: Data :NTFS : D
Partition 2: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :G
Partition 3: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :H
Partition 4: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :I
Partition 5: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :J
WD Sata 640GB:
Partition 1: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :K
Partition 2: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :L
Partition 3: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :M
Partition 4: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :N
Partition 5: 100 GB: Data :NTFS : O
Partition 6: 90 GB: Data :NTFS : P
I wanted to put the OS drive into the WD 640 GB hdd, since all but my partition 6 had some data in it, I decided to make that my OS hdd. The softwares I used:
1. Win XP SP2 Installation CD. (Yes one installation is necessary).
2. PowerQuest Partition Magic (latest Version, 8 I think, and yes the *ahem* version
and henceforth referred to as PPM)
Following are steps that I followed:
1. IMPORTANT: Note the initial drive letter configuration.(C,D,E .... etc.)
2. Use PPM to change drives D: (going to be the temporary and in case rescue OS) and P: to FAT32 format and set them as ACTIVE.
3. Reboot the system and in BIOS put the the 500 GB hdd to be the 1st in priority for boot up.
4. Install a fresh basic copy of XP on drive D:. This is going to be the temporary OS for copying and in case something goes wrong, rescue.
5. Boot into drive D: and install PPM.
6. Use PPM to "copy partition" C: to P:. Please note that when booting from D: the drive names would most probably have changed, so be careful to see to it that you identify correctly the original and destinantion drives. It will ask for resize information. In my case I put 50 GB to P: as the OS partition and the remaining 40 GB I merged with drive O:. It will reboot to apply changes and boot into D:.
7. Reboot from D: into P: (your new OS drive) through Bios changes inbetween (put the 640 GB hdd as priority 1).
8. Once inside P: rename C: to Q: and P: to C:. Please note that here you can see the original drive letter config. again. It will reboot to apply changes. When booting into it I got Windows Generic Host error. It was most probably because of drive letter config, it got fixed after renaming from next step.)
9. Once done check whether copy and renaming has been done. Process complete.
Well now I have been booting from my new 640 GB hdd without problems and it feels like my old XP installation with all my software and drivers.
Please note that I am not an expert in such activities, please feel free to point out any better/safer ways to do this. Hope it helps some.
I had windows XP sp2 and 3 hard disks with the following configuration:
Seagate Sata 80GB:
Partition 1: 16 GB: OS : FAT32 :C
Partition 2: 30 GB: Data : NTFS :E
Partition 3: 30 GB: Data : NTFS :F
Seagate Sata 500GB:
Partition 1: 60 GB: Data :NTFS : D
Partition 2: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :G
Partition 3: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :H
Partition 4: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :I
Partition 5: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :J
WD Sata 640GB:
Partition 1: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :K
Partition 2: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :L
Partition 3: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :M
Partition 4: 100 GB: Data :NTFS :N
Partition 5: 100 GB: Data :NTFS : O
Partition 6: 90 GB: Data :NTFS : P
I wanted to put the OS drive into the WD 640 GB hdd, since all but my partition 6 had some data in it, I decided to make that my OS hdd. The softwares I used:
1. Win XP SP2 Installation CD. (Yes one installation is necessary).
2. PowerQuest Partition Magic (latest Version, 8 I think, and yes the *ahem* version
and henceforth referred to as PPM)Following are steps that I followed:
1. IMPORTANT: Note the initial drive letter configuration.(C,D,E .... etc.)
2. Use PPM to change drives D: (going to be the temporary and in case rescue OS) and P: to FAT32 format and set them as ACTIVE.
3. Reboot the system and in BIOS put the the 500 GB hdd to be the 1st in priority for boot up.
4. Install a fresh basic copy of XP on drive D:. This is going to be the temporary OS for copying and in case something goes wrong, rescue.
5. Boot into drive D: and install PPM.
6. Use PPM to "copy partition" C: to P:. Please note that when booting from D: the drive names would most probably have changed, so be careful to see to it that you identify correctly the original and destinantion drives. It will ask for resize information. In my case I put 50 GB to P: as the OS partition and the remaining 40 GB I merged with drive O:. It will reboot to apply changes and boot into D:.
7. Reboot from D: into P: (your new OS drive) through Bios changes inbetween (put the 640 GB hdd as priority 1).
8. Once inside P: rename C: to Q: and P: to C:. Please note that here you can see the original drive letter config. again. It will reboot to apply changes. When booting into it I got Windows Generic Host error. It was most probably because of drive letter config, it got fixed after renaming from next step.)
9. Once done check whether copy and renaming has been done. Process complete.
Well now I have been booting from my new 640 GB hdd without problems and it feels like my old XP installation with all my software and drivers.
Please note that I am not an expert in such activities, please feel free to point out any better/safer ways to do this. Hope it helps some.