OT. Disk cloning - any Windows issues?

A computer question for the experts.

I have a failing disk on my old PC, and would like to clone the whole thing, including Win XP, onto a new (bigger) drive.

Will XP work when I try to boot up with the new disk as the bootable disk?

And if so, will MS tell me how to get it to work?

Thanks

G

Yep if you use a good cloning tool like Casper

http://www.fssdev.com/promo/casper/casper-004.html

Or Norton Ghost, you should be able to swap the drives over in the machine (set the jumpers appropriately) and boot right up. Shouldn't notice any difference.

That's what I wanted to hear. Thanks very much.

What's your name and address in case it all goes wrong? (Just joking!)

G

George - one further point of advice - check the boot sequence after you have cloned your old drive and before you have removed the old drive. The boot sequence may use the make/manufacturer/size of the disc - so if its looking for a say, a Seagate 80GB and it can't find it, it won't go to look for the drive labelled "C" - it just hangs and leaves a message on screen which doesn't make any immediate sense. Change the boot sequence first - usually by holding down the F2 key (but it should tell you in the start up script) and follow the prompts when the menu comes up. Then remove the old drive.


Steve

I can recommend Acronis True Image for this job.

Believe me, George, Norton Ghost is far more easy to use than Acronis...

There is a Easeus free software available which does the job.
regards
vikram

And every time I tried Norton for this, the cloned drive would never boot. So uninstalled it and threw it away. Damn software wasted 3 days of my life.

I hope Norton Ghost has improved since I tried it because it was ghastly.

The latest version of Acronis True Image comes with a virtually automatic disk cloning program.

I also like Acrionis Disk Director for more manual control of copying and partitioning.

I've used Paragron Hard Disk Manager & Partition Manager.
(Useful to see the other recommendations as well!)
Matt

Sorry to hear that, Unlocker. I have used Norton Ghost 2003 to make hundreds of bootable images in my job, with no problems whatsoever.

We did try Acronis with no success. But that may be down to user errors.