huh32

click on one of our sponsors! OR REMOVE ADS

Hello everyone,

I've been having a very similar problem to other people lately. I have two HDDs, an old "small" (about 40 GB) one and a new "big" (120 GB) one, in the computer I built several years ago. Anyway, the small one contains all of my windows and system files and has been freezing up on me lately. This has only been a recent problem and didn't happen after I initially built my system.

At first, I thought my computer was just overheating, as it only really happens during graphics intensive gaming, and I got some extra fans, but this didn't fix it. Then, I removed the "big" HDD in the hopes that maybe my PSU just wasn't big enough, but that didn't fix it either.

So, I've come to the conclusion that my "small" HDD is just simply crapping out, especially since it's pretty old (if I had to guess, I'd say about 6 years or so). I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how I could ghost, or even just transfer, all of the files from my "small" HDD to my bigger one without losing all the data on my "big" one?

Thanks for anything you've got.

SnapJaw

You could use Norton Ghost to create a clone of the smaller HDD onto the bigger one, but you'll need a floppy disk with the necessary Ghost files on it and need to boot up in DOS mode to run the program from the disk. I'm not too familiar with the process but apparently it's simple enough, just need to be careful that you're cloning the right disk.

Why not just re-install your OS & various s/w onto your big HDD? You'd start off clean and won't need to bring over any of the "clutter" that's on your original HDD. You could then slave the other HDD and copy over any data that you need.

huh32

I don't want to re-install the OS onto my big HDD because that would require a reformat and I have a lot of data that I would very much like to keep if at all possible.

Unless of course you know of some way to install an OS without also doing a format?

Would the instructions on Ghost detail the process you explained above, or would I have to go find it somewhere?

karearea

You have to be damn careful ghosting onto a drive with software already on it. Some (read most)ghosting programs really like a clean driveor partition to write to as DOS isn't that reliable in recognising NTFS files as the two are virtually mutually exclusive. DOS is a basic FAT(File Allocation Tables)not sure if 8 or 12 bit application. Win9x is a GUI(Graphical User Interface) for DOS6.x/7.x which is a native 16bit application and uses FAT16. Win95/98 are FAT32 applications. NTFS(WinNT4.0/2000/Me/XP) adds more tags to a file for increased security, if the tags of a user profile don't match the NTFS file then you can't manipulate the file or have limited rightsto manipulating that file. DOS won't recognise these bits and may damage/write over files that get in the way.

Also like mentioned above it's really not worth bringing any of the clutter of a previous OS onto a fresh drive. Any Demos, games or other general software that's either still in place or removed, leaves it's mark in the registry. Only the really good reg cleaners manage to get rid of most of the crap but even then...settings changed by some programs to avoid crashes in that program, sometimes don't get reverted on uninstall(leaving messy settings for memory optimzation and other assignments still in place, and since your CPU has to work around and through this crap it takes longer to process other tasks). Esp from Demo software or Malware that's managed to get through your virus checker and Firewall.

So best bet is to do a reinstall.(You can install windows without formatting but it's not really reccomended, just choose to leave the drive as is when installing. The option is at the bottom of the list for format option in the XP install)
A fragmented windows intall will always run more slowly than a fresh install into a clean partition at the begining of your primary drive.

How many partitions in your 120GB drive, if theres a few can you move the data around and clear a partition(clear at least 10GB for an OS, that'll leave just enough space for Service packs and the like). Preferably make the OS partition the first partition of a drive or you can have boot problems and the OS loading can take longer. Can you compress whats on that drive to several DVD's?

Partition Magic can make partitions on a drive without damaging other files but this program can be difficult to use for the in-experienced.

Another option is to get a new small cheap drive from a web site or computer dealer you trust. There's heaps of new small drives around about the same size as your drive you're using now. Then install your OS and core programs(Virus/Adware removal and Blocking/Word Processing/Media Players?etc) onto that if you're at all worried about losing any data on your big drive.
This idea is good particularly if you're not sure what you're doing with the ghosting/partitioning software, we both know instructions for some programs is like reading another language as they expect us to know far too much.

Best of luck
Karearea