posted on August 21, 2001 02:09:27 PM
Just to keep things simple, you'll probably want to get rid of your old drive. First, hook up both drives to see if you recognize the drive first, THEN copy to the slave, then unhook both drives, install your new drive and your O/S will take care of the rest and rename your drive.
posted on August 21, 2001 03:23:07 PM
Be sure to remove and overwrite documentation about anything on your old drive for which the statute of limitations has not run out before selling or discarding it!
posted on August 21, 2001 04:41:03 PM
James, simply copying the contents of your old hard drive onto your new hard drive will not make your new hard drive boot up to the operating system. Windows has many "invisible" folders and files that will not copy across. You need software that is specifically made for doing that. Try C-Net at http://download.cnet.com and look at Hard Drive Utilities to accomplish the copy successfully (Norton SystemWorks 2001 can do the job if you have it).
My advice is this, James: with the build-up of accumulated crap data that everyone's system gets as programs get install, uninstalled, and from neumorous system crashes, you are MUCH better off to simply install your new Hard Drive as the Primary Master, which will make it the C: drive and then re-install your operating system. That means that you'll also have to reinstall all of the programs as well.
If you do that, make sure you pull out all of the circuit cards from the slots except for your video card -- sound card, modem, network card, etc. Install Windows with ONLY your new Hard Drive. Remember that your new hard drive may not come formatted and you may have to set the DOS partition first (see previous instructions).
Once Windows is installed on your new Primary Master, set your old drive up as Primary Slave and reboot. Windows will see and install your old hard drive.
Then, install your circuit cards one by one, rebooting after each install.
That's the SMOOTHEST way I've ever managed to make Windows install go well. Be SURE that you have the Software Driver Installation disks that come with each card and device BEFORE you lose your Internet connection.
It honestly isn't hard. Set your hard drive as Stand Alone and make sure the data cable is connected to the Primary (IDE-0) connector on the main board (motherboard). Create the DOS partition as explained before. Reboot and install Windows. Power off, install your old hard drive -- set your new hard drive as Master and your old one as Slave. Boot up into and then out of Windows. Install each card, booting up into Windows, installing the drivers, shutting Windows down and repeating for each card and/or device. Then, once it's all back together, you can easily move data files and pictures, movies, documents, etc from your old hard drive to your new drive. Then, simply format your old hard drive to erase the old data.
