horseatingweeds Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 I'd like to upgrade my HD since the one I have is getting old. I purchased a Western Digital 250GB ATA HD.Here are my questions:Can I replace the HD and copy the current operating system installation to a new HD without causing problems, since the OS will only load onto this computer?How do I copy the old HD to the new one? I know, Western Digital has the Data Lifeguard Tools. But I'm not finding any instructions on their website or anywhere else on how to copy a HD to another HD. It's as if everyone just installs clean every time they upgrade the HD.I have found some tid-bits on how to use the Lifeguard tools to copy from one HD to another, but these instructions are simple click this and click that pertaining within the Lifeguard program - nothing about how to actually have the new HD connected.I'm tempted to try connecting the new HD as the slave, and copying that way. Here is the specs for my old mobo http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/documen...;product=407669. Is RAID necessary to run a second HD or is that just to run the RAID stuff? Any advice would be appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ubuntuser Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 First of all when people install new hard drives the do a fresh install and just copy the documents for a reason. Windows gets buggy after a while and a fresh start allows you to clean up a lot of old stuff lying around. your machine will run faster after that too. second, you said your new HDD is ATA. ATA hard drives don't have master/slave settings, the jumpers they have are used to restrict data rates, i'm not familiar with lifeguard but software does exist to automate the process. and if you do get everything copied you have to set to boot from one hard drive, you can make it any hard drive you have but i'd be sketchy on one that has everything copied directly, OS and all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseatingweeds Posted January 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 INdeed, I'd like to do an fresh install. But I'm not sure where this OEM copy of windows identifies the system. I have the backup I made when I first got the system. Do you know - if I install the new HD if it will accept the backup disks? Also, I called the manufacturer several years ago, when I was having problems due to all the extra garbage they loaded along with the OS, and demanded they send me a copy of the OS. So I do have that as well. (and silly me - that copy had all the garbage too. lol)Now that I think about it, I'm surprised. XP must be a pretty good distribution. I've had this install for over five years and haven't noticed any problems yet. I remember 2000 needed a reboot every year or two. Well....no - actually. My current system does refuses to come out of sleep mode sometimes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseatingweeds Posted January 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 Oh yeah - are you sure ATA can't have a slave? Perhaps I'm using the terminology wrong. The new drive has PATA printed on it, and the new and old both use the regular IDE interface cable. The new drive have jumper settings on it too, describing the slave and master settings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 Windows 9x really needed regular reinstalls, but I have never needed to reinstall any of my Windows 2000 or XP. Garbage can be kept off the system with CCleaner, firewall and anti-malware will keep the system free of malware.If you had any valuable information or software on your old backups, then a restore should do the job. If not, do a clean install. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ubuntuser Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 PATA drives (with IDE cables) do have master/slave jumpers, if your ide cable has connectors for two drives the master must be at the end of the cable with the slave in the middle. i wish i could help more but i've never heard of windows and everything along with it being cloned to a new drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
horseatingweeds Posted January 3, 2009 Author Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 I was on the wrong path then. Thanks. I'll have to do a clean install then. Is this a wise option? Install the new HD as the master and old as the slave, run a clean install on the new master HD then copy the program files and everything else I need from the old HD slave to the new HD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanHo Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 You will not be able to copy programs from one disc to another - they will need to be reinstalled using the original installation software after you get the new OS up and running. Don't forget to install anti virus and anti malware as soon as you have an internet connection.You will be able to copy data across OK though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted January 3, 2009 Report Share Posted January 3, 2009 ATA hard drives don't have master/slave settings, the jumpers they have are used to restrict data ratesThis is not correct - PATA (Parallel ATA) drives do have Master/Slave jumpers. The more modern SATA (Serial ATA) drives have a jumper to restrict SATA speeds to SATA 1 (150 MB/s) rather than SATA 2 (300 MB/s) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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