What's the best way to move everything to a new harddrive?

[DaJe]

Well, I'm getting a new HDD, so I want to transfer everything, programs files and everything, that's on this current one to my new one. I know Vista has a thing setup for just this, and I do have the beta disc, I just don't know if I want to do it that way. What oher ways are there for doing this?

[a.Bird]

This is what I would do:

-Unhook all your IDE devices.
-Install your new HDD as your primary master device.
-Install your old HDD as your secondary master device.
-Power-on and go into your BIOS. Check to see that your motherboard is reading both HDDs.
-Set your boot configuration to Floppy, CD-ROM, HDD-0, HDD-1, etc.
-Open your CD-ROM tray and insert your Windows disc.
-Save your BIOS configuration and exit.
-After your PC restarts and the disc is read, follow Windows setup until you are asked which HDD to install to.
-Create a new partition with NTFS (do not choose "quick") on your new HDD (C:) and install windows on that partition.
-After installation, start Windows and drag any documents from your old HDD (D:) into any folder on your new HDD (C:).
-I'm almost certain that due to an incredible number of registry files, miscellaneous folders, shortcuts, etc., that you will have to reinstall all of your programs on your new HDD. There may be a workaround however, if you decide to research further or anyone else here knows.
-When all transferring is done, reformat your old HDD (NTFS of course) and now you are officially transferred with a secondary storage drive.

Please only take this suggestion with a grain of sand, I'm sure there are other ways to do this. I particularly prefer this method.

[EPYK]

norton ghost work or any of those hd transfer utilitiess

[onelegout]

as EPYK said, use a ghosting program like norton ghost - it copies everything bit-by-bit from one drive to another, therefore you get exactly the same date on the new hard drive.
I used a free program to do this but I cant remember its name! Try googling for ghosting software...
Good luck
H

[Slug Toy]

haha, how about a 2GB usb drive and half a day?

[Reyer]

you could try to melt them together

[DaveW]

you could try to melt them together

ROFL!

-Dave

[AKA_RA]

im pretty sure melting hard drives together wont help in this situation. when my hard drives decided to do that to themselves it didnt work, so i dont know why doing it intentionally would. ;)

[SgtM]

Depends.. do you just want data? If so, then how much? If it's just a couple of gigs, I would do a.bird's way.

If you want everything, OS, data, applications, then you'll need something like Norton Ghost.

Personally, I don't mind spending the time doing fresh installs (unattended mode is aweome). It's actually a good idea once in a while. So, I would go with a.bird.

[gaz_the_chav]

Hang on it is called a 'HARD' drive for a reason - It must be a right rude boy to have Hard as its first name or something else...

lol

[DaJe]

Depends.. do you just want data? If so, then how much? If it's just a couple of gigs, I would do a.bird's way.

If you want everything, OS, data, applications, then you'll need something like Norton Ghost.

Personally, I don't mind spending the time doing fresh installs (unattended mode is aweome). It's actually a good idea once in a while. So, I would go with a.bird.
I want data and applications, and I bought a new copy of Windows so I don't need the operating system transfered.

[HackSore]

you could try to melt them together

Thats the best idea ever!!

[a.Bird]

Reasons for a fresh install:
-That wonderful, christmas morning feeling of booting your OS without any asenine error messages.
-Find and moves files faster on a cleaner HDD.
-In this age, if you do heavy surfing without a strong firewall and say you don't have any spy/ad/malware on your computer, you're lying.
-If you've done this before, it's a sinch. If you haven't, it's tedious and will probably make your rip your face off, resulting in a massive understanding of the universe.

[CanaBalistic]

Are you going to keep both HDD's in the same machine? If so and they are the same speed (100,133,150,ect,). Then just keep the hard drive you have right now and use the other one for storage. You could move you important files to the storage drive(just in case) and do an overwrite of windows on your main drive. It would give you that fresh install smell and should let you keep your files.

It's better for the pagefile system if you have 2 physical drives aswell. Helps speed things up a bit.

[progbuddy]

You could just have more than one HDD. Just get a specialty IDE that holds about 6 HDDs and go to town...

[a.Bird]

Or you could rent a camel and store large supply of water in your brain for the sugar ants to consume after a long day's work at the museum of miniature models of museums.

[Omega]

I actually need to get stuff off my IDE drive then plop windows into it's own partition on the SATA drive =/ then use the IDE for less important stuff like music and porn etc.

[Cevinzol]

Man I hate reinstalling the O/S.
There's just so many little things that have to be re-tweeked, it takes forever.

Ghosting will get you up and running faster but fresh installs will remove a lot of crap from the registry and other places.

what ever you do, back up your important files first.