Installing New Harddrive

[aarond38]

I am replacing my present windows xp system hard drive with a new one.
Using TI-9 build 3567 would it be best to take a TI-9 image I have stored on my external HD & using TI 9 CD transfer the image to the new internal HD or clone the old HD to the new HD?

I then want to use the old HD as a spare internal HD to place back-ups from TI-9 etc. My second question is: when I put old HD in computer as a spare internal HD after above procedure is completed how should I remove all information to avoid XP seeing two windows XP's, "C" drives etc. & creating unforseen problems?

[mark3]

Originally Posted by aarond38

I am replacing my present windows xp system hard drive with a new one.
Using TI-9 build 3567 would it be best to take a TI-9 image I have stored on my external HD & using TI 9 CD transfer the image to the new internal HD or clone the old HD to the new HD?

Cloning would be the easiest and quickest way. Try it, and if it does not work for you then use the restore image method. It's a learning experience either way.

Originally Posted by aarond38

I then want to use the old HD as a spare internal HD to place back-ups from TI-9 etc. My second question is: when I put old HD in computer as a spare internal HD after above procedure is completed how should I remove all information to avoid XP seeing two windows XP's, "C" drives etc. & creating unforseen problems?

There are probably quicker ways, but once you have established that your new HD works, boot with a Windows 98 boot disk and fdisk your old one. That process completely wipes your disk and instantaneously. To be on the safe side, ensure that the new one is disconnected during the process. Reconnect your new one and use Disk Management to format your old one.

W98 boot disk can be obtained from the following site -

http://www.bootdisk.com/

[aarond38]

Thanks a lot for the reply Mark3. After reading the many posts here and looking at the TI-9 instruction manual I believe I will go with your suggestion on Cloning as opposed to Imaging when I install my new hard drive.

Does anyone know if XP Disk Mngt. can wipe the old hard drive clean (after I verify that all is working well with Cloning process) as opposed to using FDisk method described above by Mark3?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

[GroverH]

aarond38,
Before you begin your cloning, be sure one of your backups was completed where you check marked the full disk option--for archival purposes. I would assign a unique name to your old drive --such as "Old C" just so you can distinguish it from the new. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/attac...hmentid=182030

After completion of the cloning using the Recovery CD, do NOT allow Windows to bootup with both drives attached. Instead of exiting out of the recovery CD, I would pull the power plug on the computer to remove the power.

Charlie, your signature seems to indicate that you will be using a 320g SATA drive so I "assuming" that your old drive is also a SATA drive. Normally, the boot drive is SATA-1 and any supplemental SATA drive is attached to SATA-2 mb connectors.

After cloning, remove the old drive and connect the new cloned drive in the same mb connector (Sata-1) as the original SATA drive.

Now bootup with only the new drive attached. This will enable Windows to see the new drive. Now examine some of the folders and My Computer and confirm that the new drive has the same drive letters etc as the old drive. Again, rename your drive--maybe "New C".

Also check the drive size either in My Computer or Disk Management to make sure you have the full size of the drive.

Since you are probably cloning to a larger hard drive, depending upon your choice of options, you may end up with some un-allocated space. As bVolk has written numerous times, one easy way to recover this lost space is to create an Acronis secure zone in the un-allocated drive space. Then, use TrueImage and delete the secure zone and re-allocate the space to the C drive to gain your full drive size.

Once you have made all your changes to the new drive and everything set to your liking and satisfied all has gone as desired--make a full disk backup of your new drive.

Old drive:
If you want to use old drive as an additional internal drive, then go ahead and re-attach the old drive. Just make sure your drive cable for the old drive is attached to the SATA 2 connector.

Reboot without the external drive attached. The old drive should appear as additional letters--probably after any CD or DVD drives. If you prefer other drive letter assignments, you can make drive letter changes after re-formatting.

Again, examine the additional internal old drive and make sure you are (in fact) looking at the old drive (unique drive name). Now you can reformat the original drive to whatever file system you desire (NTfs-Fat32). Disk Management formatting is an easy alternative to the 98 boot disk option.

Your external drive letter assignment will be after all other hard drive letters.

Let us know your results. Good luck.

[starsfan09]

Originally Posted by aarond38

.Does anyone know if XP Disk Mngt. can wipe the old hard drive clean (after I verify that all is working well with Cloning process) as opposed to using FDisk method described above by Mark3?

Doing this should be no problem. Go into the BIOS, and make sure BOTH HD's are turned ON. Then boot the computer. Dell computers will automatically boot from the HD that is connected to "SATA0" on the Motherboard. (Your Spare HD should be plugged into "SATA1" on the Motherboard.)When Windows boots up, you should then be able to just Right Click on the F:/ drive that picks up, and "Reformat" it to NTFS. It will wipe off the HD, and let you use it as a "Storage" drive. This is how I done mine.

NOTE:: Keep this in mind. If ever you Reinstall Windows XP, and don't go into the BIOS and temporarily turn OFF your Spare HD, then Windows will assign it as D:/.
That means that your DVD-Rom will be assigned E:/ , and the DVD-Burner will be assigned F:/.

If you want your drive assignments like in the Picture, then Turn OFF the Spare HD first BEFORE Reinstalling XP. Later, ...after Windows boots up for the FIRST time, you can turn the Spare HD back ON, ...and it will be assigned drive letter F:/.

[aarond38]

I had difficulty trying to Clone the new internal HD so I:

1. tib.imaged the old HD to my external HD & shut down computer
2. Removed the old HD (to use as a spare kept separate from computer)
3. Installed a new blank HD and using TI CD under Linux Full, copied tib.
backup file from external HD to new internal HD & shutdown computer
4. Installed spare internal HD in 2nd slot inside computer case after making
certain all was working well with primary HD
5. Made a new tib. file of newly installed HD & stored it on the spare HD
which is where I intend to store my TI backups (Also onto my external
HD)

I now have TI images of my entire drive stored on my 2nd internal drive
(which is a spare) and also on my external drive just for safety.

As I have learned, TI-9 is a great product if used properly and one takes the time to look over the TI-9 instruction manual and look over the many fine articles written in this forum.

My thanks to Mark3, GroverH & Starsfan09 for all their suggestions, comments and encouragement.

[GroverH]

A success story is always nice to hear. Thanks for sharing it with us. The more we learn, the more we realize how much more there is yet to be learned.

You're absolutely right. There is a world of information on these forum pages. It's great that so many are willing to share their knowledge with us amateurs.