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General discussion

Help "Cloning"? or adding new HDD?

Mar 31, 2011 1:12PM PDT

Hey guys, first post here, looking for some computer help.
currently i have a windows xp computer with two hard drives.
HDD A: 150gb (currently the one i'm using)
HDD B: 1TB
both of them are installed inside the computer.

currently HDD B isnt even partitioned, so i'm going to need to figure out how to do that.
(i have my windows xp cd, so i was thinking just popping it in and going to set up a new windows xp and go down to the other drive and partition it that way and then just never install?)

then i'd either like to simply add the 1TB of space to my computer (if that even makes sense...)
or
transfer everything from hdd A to hdd B, then have the computer boot off the HDD B.
that would mean everything i have on HDD A would be on HDD B and it'd be the same just instead of 150gb its 1tb. from what i understand this is called "cloning", how do i go about that?

am i missing something? is there an easier way to do any of this?

thanks for the help in advance.

Discussion is locked

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Re: HDD
Mar 31, 2011 6:54PM PDT

Partitioning and formatting a disk in XP is done through Disk Management. Just google XP DISK MANAGEMENT and the top hits will tell you all. After that, you'll have a 150 GB c:-drive and a 1000 GB d:-drive. That's the easiest part.

But you could also 'clone' the contents of the c:-drive to that other drive. Your hard disk might have come with software for that. Or use CLONEZILLA (open source). Then, after exchanging the disks (from master to slave or use each others SATA conncections) you'll have a 1000 GB c:-drive and a 150 GB d:-drive. That's a somewhat more time-consuming way to reach another configuration.

Kees

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Needs C drive
Mar 31, 2011 9:09PM PDT

You're NOT going to boot from drive D. The OS stops you from doing that unless you multiple boot setup, the C drive needs to contain some boot-up. XP expects to boot from C, thus it will always look there. Unless, you find some fancy s/w that does otherwise and have to deal with its special circumstances and Gawd hope you never have issues. Though, you can clone, you would have to physically route(cable) or relocate the HDs in order to make C and D drives. If you brought the 1Tb recently, it should have s/w to accomplish(clone) this. If not in the new HD package, then their support website should have it.

tada -----Willy Happy