Migrating Data To A New Hdd

[mobboss01]

I am getting an new HDD and I was wondering how to migrate my data off my current one. I have a C and D drive already installed. The C drive holds my OS and the D will be replaced with a new one. As I see it, I am trying not to have to burn all my data to CD's cause that is time consuming, as we all know.

Is the only way to accomplish this is by hooking up another CPU with the new D drive in it to my CPU, and copy files. If so, how do I do that, With a CAT 5 cable?


FYI: I would just copy files to my C drive if I could fit all the files.

[Somebody1234]

You say you already have a C: and a D: drive installed. Is that 2 hard disks of is it one hard disk with 2 partitions?

You can connect the new drive to your existing system. Just connect it with the IDE cable and make it a slave. Make a partition and format it. You can then transfer the files directly without another PC or network.

Edit: To add that you can always connect your new drive to the secondary IDE just for the transfer. Disconnect your CDRom drive temporarily to do your transfers and then reconnect you CDRom again.

[chloe_cc2002]

Other half agrees:

"sometimes two hard drives hooked up don't get along with each other, compatibility, but theoretically it should work. We have three hard drives on one computer, two partitions on one drive. The other computer just has one drive divided into two partitions. They are networked"

[alan36uk]

I tried to copy my c: drive to another one.
Including windows.
It got to a certain point and stopped saying
that it could not transfer some windows files as they
were in use.
Is there a way around that ?

[mobboss01]

Edit: To add that you can always connect your new drive to the secondary IDE just for the transfer. Disconnect your CDRom drive temporarily to do your transfers and then reconnect you CDRom again.

Ok, I didn't know that would work. Thanks. I do have two HDD's already and this new one will be relpalcing my D drive cause of its larger space. I am glad to hear I can temporarily hook the new one up to my CD-ROM cable for the migration. Task solved, hopefully.

[Somebody1234]

Just to be on the safe side... Disconnect your existing drives then connect only your new one, partition and format it while it is the only drive in the system.

After that, reconnect your old drives as they were before. Connect the new (now formatted) drive on CDRom IDE cable. Startup you computer to get into windows. You will see your new drive (or drives if you made more than 1 partition) in 'My Computer'.

Copy your data with 'Right click and Drag&Drop'... Choose the 'Copy here' option.

[mobboss01]

Ok, I hear you on that one Somebody1234. I do need to have it formatted for NTFS anyway. Do you use anything special to do that format. I have partition magic, but if this fresh HDD will be the only drive installed at the time, I will have no OS.



I was planning to first install this new drive in place of my old D drive. Format it for NTFS, then replace my new HDD drive with the old and hook the new one up to the CD-ROM drive for the copy process. Or after the format to NTFS, I could also just put in my old D drive in place of my CD-ROM this way I dont have to remove the new HDD at all. Would that fly?

[Somebody1234]

Sure. That will work too. If you are using Windows XP you can bootup with the XP CD and there are tools to create partitions and do NTFS formatting. You can use this on the new drive connected all by itself. You don't need an installed OS to perform these tasks.

You can connect your old drive to the CDRom IDE and transfer it that way too.

[mobboss01]

I know that partition magic will format a drive to NTFS, but I like the idea of using the XP cd to format the fresh drive without any other drives installed. Then before the installer tries to copy windows files, I will abort the installation.

Or, I could just hook up the new drive to the cd-rom cables, copy the files, and then convert (if needed) the drive to NTFS with partition magic.

In any event, I am excited to get the HDD. I will be ripping all my CD's with exact audio copy and encoding with LAME at a VBR.

Thanks for your help fellas.

[Somebody1234]

Or, I could just hook up the new drive to the cd-rom cables, copy the files, and then convert

You won't be able to copy the files to your new drive until you partition and format it. So start right away with NTFS, that way you will not need to convert.