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

John,

I'm sort of confused by this.  I just had to do this, more or less, to
my wife's PC, though instead of installing a new drive, I wanted to
take her Ghosted back-up drive and make it the new Drive C:.  Well, of
course, Windows sees the different drive serial number and won't boot
up if you simply swap the IDE cables.

Does this scheme solve the problem of Windows XP "choking" on a drive
with a different "signature"?

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI


On 3/4/06, DJK(John) Robinson <djkr at msn.com> wrote:
> 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
> ..)
>
> "Honor your partners, first couple in the middle and swing, then swing your
> first corners, ..." - just need an accordion and the all-important *caller*!
>
> I'd leave the burners out of the equation.  Sharing a hard drive and an
> optical drive on the same ribbon cable can slow down the hard drive a lot.
>
> HTH, and good luck!
>
> John
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
> [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Arthur Fuller
> Sent: 05 March 2006 00:08
> To: 'Discussion of Hardware and Software issues'
> Subject: [dba-Tech] Ghosting an old HD to a New HD
>
>
> My main squeeze has twin 80 GB drives. Today I bought a 250 GB drive. I want
> to burn the image of c:\ to the new drive, then swap them, reboot and be
> back where I was a few minutes ago with everything working correctly. I have
> an ancient version of Ghost. The current setup is NTFS everywhere. The
> ancient version alleges to support NTFS but if memory serves there was a
> change a few years back in the NTFS structure; so I am a teensy bit nervous
> that the old version won't support the changed structure. My plan thus far
> is this (dictated by the complete absence of free space
> anywhere): unplug HD #2 (d:\), replace it with the big new drive, run Ghost
> or Partition Magic and copy everything from c:\ to the new drive, then swap
> the new drive for the old drive c:\, reboot and experience joy. Before I do
> anything, I request some feedback -- an assurance this will work, a better
> approach, whatever. I am NOT a hardware guy. I prefer to confine my
> perspective to the subtleties of SQL etc. The current box has twin 80 GB
> disks, both of which have about 6 GB free. Ideally, I would like to move
> everything from the existing c:\ to the new disk, then do the same with
> everything on the d:\ disk (but I expect that to be more complex, since
> numerous pointers will be looking for d:\ not c:\). On Step Two I don't care
> to do it immediately, since it will continue to work as is, assuming that I
> correctly image existing drive c:\ to the new drive, then remove the old
> drive and plonk in the new one. Holes in logic? Superior strategies? More
> optimized solution? All advice gratefully accepted. (I also have a CD burner
> and a DVD burner connected. Perhaps I should unhook one of these rather than
> d:\ and go about it that way.)? TIA, Arthur
>
> _______________________________________________