Re-installing XP Home after replacing a hard drive 1

[Mike Lewis]

My question relates to XP Home rather than XP Pro. I hope it's OK to post it here.

I have a PC with a very flaky hard drive. Several times per day, the drive stops spinning and crashes the system. I want to replace it with a new drive.

My question is: Is there an easy way to transfer the operating system and essential applications and files to the new drive, without having to re-install everything from scratch?

In other words, can I create a bootable recovery CD with the OS files on it? Once I have taken the old drive out, I would like to boot from this CD and then install Windows from it. Does that make sense?

In XP Pro, I would use Automated System Recovery, but that option does not appear to be available in XP Home.

Thanks in advance.

Mike




__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)

 

[BOURBAKI]

Check out MSFN's Unattended XP CD The definitive how-to guide!

http://unattended.msfn.org/

You could also try ghosting your harddrive with a product such as Norton's Ghost assuming the harddrive will continue running long enough to ghost it.

http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

 

[Mike Lewis]

BOURBAKI,

I'll take a look at that site. Thanks.

You could also try ghosting your harddrive with a product such as Norton's Ghost

I think I have a copy of Norton Ghost. But wouldn't I need to have both drives installed at the same time in order to use it?

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)

 

[traycee]

The program 'ghost' will do exactly what you want, which is to make an exact duplicate of the software from your old hardware to a new hard drive. However, how do you know your problem is not software related? Software problems can cause a system to lock up and crash. The majority of hard drive manufacturerers provide free software to check hard drives to see if they are bad. Never assume.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Traycee,

how do you know your problem is not software related?

Thanks for your reply. It's a good question.

First, three times out of four, the machine won't boot at all. If I go into the CMOS Setup screen, it doesn't show any hard drive. Similarly, if I boot from a DOS diskette, there is no hard drive visible.

Secondly, when this started happening, the machine wouldn't boot at all -- with the same symptoms as above. I tried the old trick of removing the hard drive and re-connecting it, and everything worked OK for a few days (not very conclusive, I admit).

Also, just before the drive crashes, I hear strange clicking and scraping sounds from inside the case, which I don't recall hearing before.

I admit none of this is conclusive proof that it's not a software problem, but in my inexpert opinion, it does point to a dodgy drive. However, I'd be interested to hear if you agree.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)

 

[Mike Lewis]

But wouldn't I need to have both drives installed at the same time in order to use it?

I've just read the Ghost manual. I see now that I can copy the system to a set of CDs or a USB drive.

Mike


__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)

 

[Mike Lewis]

Just to follow up ...

I used Norton Ghost to copy the system to a USB drive. It worked well. I then replaced the drive, installed the system from the ghost file, and so far everything is working perfectly.

Thanks for all your help, and expecially to BOURBAKI to recommending Norton Ghost (worth a star).

Mike



__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

My sites:
Visual FoxPro (www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk)
Crystal Reports (www.ml-crystal.com)