BleepingComputer.com: Swapping out Boot Hard Drive/Drive-to-Drive Copy Questions

Hello all!

I just bought a new WD Sata 320 GB hard drive for my desktop system. The current hard drive I am using is much smaller and operates with EIDE cables. My intention was to use both hard drives in the system, but make the new SATA hard drive the boot drive and the old one a storage device. The CD and installation software that came with the SATA hard drive includes a "Drive to Drive Copy" utility that "should be used when replacing an existing boot hard drive with a newer, faster hard drive." The software is labeled as Western Digital "Data Lifeguard Tools".

I was unable to find any other information about drive to drive copying and was a little skeptical about the safety of it. I have backed up all my files on an external hard drive. My question now is this, if I do a drive to drive copy does it install the current boot drives operating system on the new boot drive or would I need to reinstall the operating system upon rebooting, and finally, how safe is this procedure?

Thanks ahead of time for any input!

FWIW: I employ just the reverse procedures you intend to employ. I take the smallest drive that I have (20GB to 40GB) and install XP on those drives, while using all the larger drives for nothing but storage.

The advantage to this, as I see it...I don't have any miscellaneous data files on the same drive that the operating system is on, maintenance of the C: partition is much easier/quicker...and I'd rather have my transfer rates for data on the largest storage partitions, rather than the system partition, because I move files around a lot.

I've never used Data Lifeguard Tools, so I can't tell you anything specific about it.

But, if it's considered to be drive overlay software...I would suggest not using it with XP.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=D...mp;oq=&aqi=

Louis

I have decided to do as you say, keep the OS [registry] on the smaller drive and use the others for storage. But this still leaves me with the problem of having all my program files etc on that hard drive. Is there a way to harmlessly move everything except an operating system? I really would like to avoid having to uninstall and reinstall everything. Specifically speaking I use Steam for most of my gaming, all the software from Steam is downloaded and so to reinstall all those games means well over 60 GB of downloading. What I mean to ask is, is there anyway to move program files, documents, and settings without having to reinstall, reconfigure, or re-target?

Note: I looked more into the Data Lifeguard Tools, they are safe for XP use, I don't believe they are the drive overlay software you referred to, but thanks for the warning. The Data Lifeguard Tools and the Drive-to-Drive copy utility quite literally make a clone of one hard drive onto another. Is this applicable to my issue?

This post has been edited by sp00nsie: 24 August 2009 - 08:25 PM

to move you steam games to the other drive you just need to install steam on the other driver than copy the steammaps folder over "C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps" as thats is where all your steam games are installed, it worked for me without haveing to re-download anything

OH! Duhhh. Thanks!

I think I should be all set now. Thanks everyone!