PC hardware forum: HELP...I'm so intimidated about installing NEW hard drive :(

Hello,

Interesting all the above are good, but you need to explain your issue more:

Have you installed the HD?
Do you want to clone the HD or just copy your personal data from it? etc, etc....

Anyway, what I do is usually is (as someone said earlier) install disk, then install a new OS, patch it, add my Firewall and antivirus SW. Then install personal SW as required.

Then add my original HD to system as slave, use win explorer to copy my peraonal data with drag and drop, easy.

Data management best practice anyway is ensure that you place all your personal data under My Documents folder organise as you like but at least you know where it is!

Now if you want to clone your HD, thats other story lots of SW available, but I like the free stuff, usualay the best because some clever people out there. I use xxclone from www.xxclone.com, a one button solution, makes new HD bootable HD etc. Only tricky bit is making a multi boot boot.ini, if thats how you want to test it.

Reagrds.....

Richard

Don't even load this garabge on your new drive.

ONLY Install if you do not wish to own your computer

See
http://www.imilly.com/kazaa.htm

http://viruses.surferbeware.com/kazaa-virus-desktop.htm

http://www.viruslist.com/eng/viruslist.html?id=49790

http://www.pestpatrol.com/pestinfo/k/kazaa_virus.asp

You transfer the files like they were being transferred to another part of the drive.
Highlight file, select the 'move' from the taskbar or the 'edit' file in the taskbar then indicate the new drive location you want it moved to in the window that opens.
You don't need to buy any additional software usually after you buy your Microsoft Windows equipped computer except for perhaps some game software or the like. Hardware additions, from my experience, will contain their own software for installing the hardware and integrating it to the rest of the system.
Microsoft makes available additional software for such things as readers, agent readers and dictation as well as many more such as the registry mechanic that cleans the registry. Other free software, sometimes offered to users free as teasers to more advanced business used software, is also available to fill just about every basic operating need for the home computer operation, as far as I've determined, so far.

there is a lot of different things you can do..one that i have found the best that works for me is arcronis easy migrate 6. its great from the point that it will resize your partition to the new drive if they are not identical in size...also the same with partition magic. i found that easy migrate only takes about an hour to switch and your new drive is ready to plug n play..MS files and trans wizard takes about 4 hours to move from one drive to another..sometimes longer...depending on the size of the move. good luck

Hi Lisa,
I have used several programs in the past to transfer the contents of one hard drive into another. The most user friendly and elegant program I am using at present is Acronis True Image. This program will allow you to compress the content of your first hard drive and place it in your second hard drive. This way you can save a great deal of space in your second hard drive. The program cost a lot less than Norton Ghost and you can backup into CDs, if you wish. If you need to recover the content of your first hard drive, sometime in the future, it is very straight forward. It comes with a very easy to understand user manual and online support is excellent, if you need.

Nortons Ghost is good, however if you don't plan on turning this into something you do for a living I would not purchase Norton's Ghost. It is a tool used to make a backup of an existing hard drive (minus all the other files later installed) to copy to a new hard drive. Norton is used to produce an image that would be used as a backup before adding other files or used to place an image of the original hard drive on several computers so that they all have the same image. With a hard drive that has already been used you probably have a more than a few files that you have installed, downloaded or copied onto your pc. That would make it almost impossible to put all of it on one disk unless you had a dvd-rw. My suggestion would be to go with Nero Version 6; it has a back up program that allows you to save to cd, dvd-r, and dvd-rw or to another hard drive. Additionally then you would also have a very good program for burning cd's, dvd's, video cd's, movies, or music. All this after you had used it to back up your old hard drive. It is more than just a backup utility that has no other function other than making a copy of a hard drive. Instructions are easy; you are almost hand carried through the restore process to put the files back onto the new hard drive into their original locations as they were on the old hard drive. When you restore the backup it also restores your registry; the registry makes sure that each file and their links to the other files they need to run are replaced. Any questions, you can email me and I will email back help on how to do it.

You will definitely have to reactivate the programs ;YOU MUST HAVE THE IMAGE ON ANOTHER PARTITION THANT THE ONE YOU BACKUPED FROM!
Reactiavating will not be cessary if you copy the whole image including the OS ; I never tempted that : it's extemely risky : if the os's image is taken from a previous install which contained minaor alterations of some system files , you will get a bad Install at best , at worst your PC will not boot correctly ;better to make a clean install , yuse your image to reconfigure your parameters the way you liked them and reactivate your softwares; yes , I know that this sounds like a complete reinstall but you get a clean install and all the burden of having your old configuration is taken up by the image , so it's half theway through. OLIVIER GEBUHRER

The best software for the moment is DRIVE IMAGE ; formerly it was edited by POWERQUEST which .... sold the software to Symantech editor of Norton Ghost ; The only reason why I WOULD NOT ADVICE to turn over to this software (NORTON GHOST) is because the Tech service of symantech is really the worst I ever saw : you get absolutely nothing for free aside from basics included in FAQ's ; any serious question will not be answered ; if you decide to buy Drive image which nevertheless is the best of the best, you have to read very carefully the manual ; you will be on your own!!! First of all the software DOES not install if previouly you did not install Microsoft NET . Framework (the reference might not be correct so check on Microsoft Download section ) This last software is free . I assume you are working on Windows XP (any version , home or pro) . ANY OTHER OS won't work with Drive image!!!!
Now as a substitute:you can get Drive Backup from paragon software ; this is also extremely good plus you can ask the tech service as many times as you wish ;the answers are quick and they are eager to answer your questions ; if you install a new hard drive you will need to make a CLEAN INSTALL of the OS ; this is the best : copying back the image of your previous drive is risky in all ways ; once your new OS is installed any of the image software I told about will get your drive installed exactly as before : you won't have to REINSTALL the OS , so only the rest of the image drive will be necessary (you just exclude the windows folder when you copy your previuos Image from the backup : both softwares will present you eveverything in a completely clear way. Best regards OLIVIER GEBUHRER