An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

[Guest Need a miracle]

Hi:

 

I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my operating

system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it is up and running

again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

 

There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB RAID 0

system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided Microsoft's advice

about dual operating systems) and another 250GB ATA hard drive.

 

The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of retirement.

 

So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively painless way

of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth of installations and

settings -- directly to one of the more reliable storage devices?

 

Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life *should*

be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly slow

installation start and restart, while digging up old serial numbers and

installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

 

Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say "no, you

technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this. Microsoft cares

about you. You should apologize to the company for holding such a low opinion

of it ..."

 

I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture remain

identical.

 

Thanks,

Richard

[Guest sgopus]

RE: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

Get Acronis True Image , it will clone your old drive to the new drive,

(requires two drives hooked up to the system)

 

"Need a miracle" wrote:

> Hi:

>

> I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my operating

> system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it is up and running

> again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

>

> There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB RAID 0

> system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided Microsoft's advice

> about dual operating systems) and another 250GB ATA hard drive.

>

> The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of retirement.

>

> So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively painless way

> of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth of installations and

> settings -- directly to one of the more reliable storage devices?

>

> Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life *should*

> be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly slow

> installation start and restart, while digging up old serial numbers and

> installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

>

> Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say "no, you

> technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this. Microsoft cares

> about you. You should apologize to the company for holding such a low opinion

> of it ..."

>

> I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture remain

> identical.

>

> Thanks,

> Richard

>

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest Andrew E.]

RE: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it

will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot

to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to

C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:

XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent

letter,

then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no

diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

 

"Need a miracle" wrote:

> Hi:

>

> I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my operating

> system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it is up and running

> again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

>

> There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB RAID 0

> system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided Microsoft's advice

> about dual operating systems) and another 250GB ATA hard drive.

>

> The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of retirement.

>

> So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively painless way

> of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth of installations and

> settings -- directly to one of the more reliable storage devices?

>

> Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life *should*

> be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly slow

> installation start and restart, while digging up old serial numbers and

> installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

>

> Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say "no, you

> technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this. Microsoft cares

> about you. You should apologize to the company for holding such a low opinion

> of it ..."

>

> I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture remain

> identical.

>

> Thanks,

> Richard

>

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest GHalleck]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

 

Andrew E. wrote:

> XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it

> will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot

> to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to

> C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:

> XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent

> letter,

> then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no

> diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

>

 

That is so cumbersome. The easy and painless route is via Acronis True

Image or Ghost or any other hard drive cloning software, shareware or

freeware. Moreover, think about it...xcopy plus "repair" does not cut it,

especially when there are numerous updates post facto to the original

installation and just how many people would have made a slipstreamed copy

of the XP installation cdrom with all of these updates, including SP3, to

use for the repair?

[Guest Anteaus]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

 

XCOPY will also not work from the running OS, as it did with Win9x. Plus, it

does not solve the issue of the bootloader needing reinstalled.

 

Add to that, those pesky permissions on NTFS may prevent EVEN an

Administrator from copying all files. (whoever designed this feature had a

bad day, IMHO)

 

"GHalleck" wrote:

> That is so cumbersome. The easy and painless route is via Acronis

[Guest Ken Blake, MVP]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

On Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:58:50 -0700, GHalleck

<ghalleck@arrakian.mining.com> wrote:

>

> Andrew E. wrote:

>

> > XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it

> > will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot

> > to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to

> > C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:

> > XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent

> > letter,

> > then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no

> > diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

> >

>

> That is so cumbersome.

 

 

And it doesn't work reliably.

 

> The easy and painless route is via Acronis True

> Image or Ghost or any other hard drive cloning software, shareware or

> freeware. Moreover, think about it...xcopy plus "repair" does not cut it,

> especially when there are numerous updates post facto to the original

> installation and just how many people would have made a slipstreamed copy

> of the XP installation cdrom with all of these updates, including SP3, to

> use for the repair?

 

--

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please Reply to the Newsgroup

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

A simple and safe test that anyone can run will quickly and definitely

put your "solution" to rest. At a Command Prompt issue:

 

cd\

md c:\test

xcopy %systemroot%system32\config c:\test

 

Of course the command will halt and give a pesky little message about a

sharing violation:

 

C:\>xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\test

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\DEFAULT

Sharing violation

 

The simpleton solution to this pesky little inconvenience is to use

xcopy's /c "ignore errors" switch! So let us try the test again with

Andrew's switches, minus the /e switch, for our little test we don't

need to copy all the subdirectories so we will keep things brief. Lets

try this again:

 

C:\>rd /s c:\test

c:\test, Are you sure (Y/N)? y

 

C:\>xcopy %systemroot%\system32\config c:\test /c/h/k/r

Does C:\test specify a file name

or directory name on the target

(F = file, D = directory)? d

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\AppEvent.Evt

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\DEFAULT

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.LOG

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\default.sav

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SAM.LOG

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SecEvent.Evt

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SECURITY.LOG

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SOFTWARE

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.LOG

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\software.sav

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SysEvent.Evt

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\SYSTEM

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.LOG

Sharing violation

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\system.sav

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\TempKey.LOG

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\userdiff

C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\userdiff.LOG

9 File(s) copied

 

Hmmm... that seems to have copied the folder and the pesky "Sharing

Violations" were ignored! Now let us look more closely at the results,

let's use the DIR command to examine our folders:

 

C:\>dir %systemroot%\system32\config /a sh

 

Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32\config

 

05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> .

05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> ..

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 458,752 AppEvent.Evt

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 DEFAULT

07/03/2008 12:10 AM 1,024 default.LOG

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 94,208 default.sav

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 SAM

07/06/2008 08:54 AM 1,024 SAM.LOG

06/03/2008 12:33 PM 65,536 SecEvent.Evt

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 262,144 SECURITY

07/06/2008 07:32 AM 1,024 SECURITY.LOG

07/02/2008 11:54 PM 12,582,912 SOFTWARE

07/06/2008 09:55 AM 1,024 software.LOG

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 659,456 software.sav

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 393,216 SysEvent.Evt

07/02/2008 11:32 PM 6,553,600 SYSTEM

07/06/2008 09:54 AM 1,024 system.LOG

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 892,928 system.sav

05/20/2008 12:32 AM <DIR> systemprofile

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 TempKey.LOG

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 262,144 userdiff

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 userdiff.LOG

19 File(s) 22,756,352 bytes

 

C:\>dir c:\test /a sh

 

Directory of c:\test

 

07/06/2008 09:55 AM <DIR> .

07/06/2008 09:55 AM <DIR> ..

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 458,752 AppEvent.Evt

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 94,208 default.sav

06/03/2008 12:33 PM 65,536 SecEvent.Evt

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 659,456 software.sav

07/02/2008 07:08 PM 393,216 SysEvent.Evt

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 892,928 system.sav

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 TempKey.LOG

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 262,144 userdiff

05/19/2008 09:42 PM 1,024 userdiff.LOG

9 File(s) 2,828,288 bytes

 

The results are that xcopy copied 9 File(s) 2,828,288 bytes out of 19

File(s) 22,756,352 bytes from the original config folder, the solution

offered is a failure.

 

John

 

Andrew E. wrote:

> XP already has the software to do that,however it runs with IDE hds,it

> will copy to a SATA or RAID set,but after it runs one would need to boot

> to xp cd,use the "repair xp" installation.To run,set the new hd as slave to

> C: on same IDE cable,format the new hd in xp,once thru,go to run,type:

> XCOPY C:\*.* D:\ /c/h/e/k/r D: being the slave hd,if asigned diffrent

> letter,

> then use it instead.Also,agree to all in the DOS window,thier would be no

> diffrent settings for SATA/RAID,just run as described,then repair.

>

> "Need a miracle" wrote:

>

>

>>Hi:

>>

>>I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my operating

>>system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it is up and running

>>again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

>>

>>There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB RAID 0

>>system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided Microsoft's advice

>>about dual operating systems) and another 250GB ATA hard drive.

>>

>>The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of retirement.

>>

>>So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively painless way

>>of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth of installations and

>>settings -- directly to one of the more reliable storage devices?

>>

>>Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life *should*

>>be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly slow

>>installation start and restart, while digging up old serial numbers and

>>installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

>>

>>Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say "no, you

>>technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this. Microsoft cares

>>about you. You should apologize to the company for holding such a low opinion

>>of it ..."

>>

>>I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture remain

>>identical.

>>

>>Thanks,

>>Richard

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

>>

[Guest HeyBub]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

Need a miracle wrote:

> Hi:

>

> I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my

> operating system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it

> is up and running again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

>

> There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB

> RAID 0 system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided

> Microsoft's advice about dual operating systems) and another 250GB

> ATA hard drive.

>

> The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of

> retirement.

>

> So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively

> painless way of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth

> of installations and settings -- directly to one of the more reliable

> storage devices?

>

> Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life

> *should* be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly

> slow installation start and restart, while digging up old serial

> numbers and installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

>

> Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say

> "no, you technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this.

> Microsoft cares about you. You should apologize to the company for

> holding such a low opinion of it ..."

>

> I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture

> remain identical.

>

> Thanks,

> Richard

 

Most hard disk manufacturers have a free utility to do exactly what you want

and the utility will be available on their website. You run the utility and

you end up with a hard drive identical to your original except it has more

available space.

 

Swap some cables and boot from the newly-created drive. You're good to go.

 

Manufacturers provide this as a marketing tool - the availability of such a

tool removes a big impediment to buying one of their larger drives.

[Guest Richard in AZ]

Re: An MS moment: can my system be moved from HD to HD?

 

 

"HeyBub" <heybub@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:eMErP653IHA.3624@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

> Need a miracle wrote:

>> Hi:

>>

>> I recently averted disaster when the hard drive containing my

>> operating system got sizzled in a power surge. Thanks to Testdisk, it

>> is up and running again. But ... I don't trust the drive any more.

>>

>> There are two other HD storage devices on the computer --- a 435 GB

>> RAID 0 system with a barebones sytem on it (thank God I avoided

>> Microsoft's advice about dual operating systems) and another 250GB

>> ATA hard drive.

>>

>> The one that crashed is a 70GB Western Digital deserving of

>> retirement.

>>

>> So, understanding that this is Microsoft, is there a relatively

>> painless way of transfering the system -- with its four years' worth

>> of installations and settings -- directly to one of the more reliable

>> storage devices?

>>

>> Can the registry just be copied over (which is certainly how life

>> *should* be)? Or do I have to spend days watching Windows XP maddenly

>> slow installation start and restart, while digging up old serial

>> numbers and installation CDs for dozens of programs, etc?

>>

>> Does Microsoft really expect me to waste all that time? Please say

>> "no, you technically inept moron, there's a nice easy way to do this.

>> Microsoft cares about you. You should apologize to the company for

>> holding such a low opinion of it ..."

>>

>> I paid for the OS, of course, and the CPU and all its architecture

>> remain identical.

>>

>> Thanks,

>> Richard

>

> Most hard disk manufacturers have a free utility to do exactly what you

> want and the utility will be available on their website. You run the

> utility and you end up with a hard drive identical to your original except

> it has more available space.

>

> Swap some cables and boot from the newly-created drive. You're good to go.

>

> Manufacturers provide this as a marketing tool - the availability of such

> a tool removes a big impediment to buying one of their larger drives.

To add to that, use the tools from the HD manufacturer for the drive that

you are moving to, not from.

I would suggest the 250 GB ATA drive manufacturer.

Remember to make that drive a "Master" after you are done.