[dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD

Thanks for the detailed explanation and recipe!
Your last comment struck me particularly, since I was told precisely the
opposite by somebody. Not to say you or he is right, but what he said was,
"The best way to lay it out is both HDs as masters, and your CD-burner and
DVD-burner as slaves. That way, you can enter the BIOS at bootup and choose
which master to boot."
I know so little about this stuff that I am not even sure your position
differs from his.

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of DJK(John)
Robinson
Sent: March 4, 2006 8:07 PM
To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD

Hi Arthur

I'm not an expert in this area, but I have done similar things.  I used
Drive Image 7 (not its sibling Partition Magic).  

Before you start copying stuff, you might want to partition the new disc
into partitions that will in due course become C:\ and D:\  But don't give
them drive letters yet:  it's too easy to get snarled up.  Under Win XP, use
Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Computer Management \ Disk
Management.  But hey, I'm sure you knew that.  :-)

I think your strategy is sound.  OK, so D:\ will be out of action
temporarily, but when you've imaged the old C:\ onto the new potential C:\
you can try switching over to it.  If it fails, go back to old C:\ while you
figure out why;  if it works, go on to stage 2.  

I'd get on to Stage 2 right away, while you're on a roll!  Use Disk
Management to mess with the drive letters:  give the new potential D:\ some
temporary letter, say T:\.  Physically swap the old drives over, so you can
copy the D:\ contents onto T:\.  OK? Then change the old D:\'s drive letter
to X:\, and change T:\ to D:\  You should now have a fully working system
with C: and D: drives both on your new disk, and all the pointers happy and
unchanged: no complexity.  (BUT you still have both old disks, just in case
..)