I am a great fan of Maxtor DiamondPlus 8 ATA 40GB drives, and I have a spare new one, which I would like to use to replace a very tired old drive. However I have rather an odd setup:

Drive1 - OLD -: 28GB NTFS

C (stores boot.ini e.t.c.) - Primary partition
Other partitions with files on

Drive 2 - SECONDARY DRIVE-: 38GB NTFS

XP Pro - Primary partition
Other partitions with files on

However previously I tried to copy stuff over with the new drive n my CD drive IDE cable (the BIOS hated this with master and slave settings!). Then it woudn't boot on that new drive alone -with the secondary drive-. When I have the

What software do I need, I have PTM latest version & Norton system works

Please feel free to ask questions (I know I would want more information if I read it - and I've probably left out something crucial-) about my setup, I would like to post more info. but am lazy to write it in one go! Cheers.

I dont know exactly what else you are supposed to do about that but I think that it will be better for you to reinstal the WIN XP into the 2nd HDD and then transfer a backup of the former HDD into the new one.

Try it. I think that it will work for you.

You need Norton Ghost to make images of your drives ad copy them over. Copying just the files won't be enough, there is information in master boot records etc which cannot be copied in a regular way and therefore won't let you boot into windows.

It sounds if you are trying to replace your first drive (with the boot files etc) for a new one, and you don't want to reinstall windows XP on your second drive. It's a difficult problem, but every problem has an answer

Symantec Site

According to the site there is an option: copy MBR, you should check this option

You should also look into the settings of the boot.ini, cause if you're drive changes (i.e. another place on the ide cable / another partition), your ini file will be incorrect and you will get a message about not being able to find the boot partition. so make sure you have an exact copy from your old hd on your new hd, and also have the hardware setup exactly the same.

good luck.

Cheers all for the help. Been away setting up my site. Will Ghost, copy the partition data aswell; and I know it goes out of Windows but will it keep the same drive letters? Otherwise the registry is going to be killing me!

Does Ghost move or copy? Which IDE cable should I attach it to then, Windows will start giving it drive letters which I won't want next time (would be a faf to change)

Matt1eD,

Driveletters is your least concern, cause you can change them dynamicly from within windows itself. Absolutely not hard to do.
If you use programs like ghost, it will be an 1 on 1 copy of all bites on your harddisk.
As for the place of the harddisk on the ide, it has to be on the exact same place as the old HD.
So if your old HD is on your Primary cable as a slave disk, your new HD has to be on that exact same place (so it physicly replaces your old disk).
My suggestion to you is the following;
- keep your old drive at the place it is right now and connect the new one on the place of the CD for example.
- Boot from a dosfloppy and run a program like ghost to clone your old disk to your new disk (don't use a one on one copy using a dos command, cause that will f*** it all up, bacause it doesn;t support long filename).
- If this is done, the old drive and the new drive should contain the exact same partitions and data)
- then remove both disks from your pc. set the jumpers on your new disk like those on the old one (e.g. if the old one is configured for Slave, set the new one to slave. same for Cable select (CS) and master).
- place the new drive on the place that you have over now the old drive is out of the pc.

If you do this, there should be no problems in replacing the disk with all the data it contains.

If you wonder about the drive letters, after you replace the disks, go to start, control pannel, administrative tools, computermanagement, device management. and there you can change drives.

I wish you good luck.

Thanks,

I was concerned about drive letters, cause it might go looking for stuff on it before I've changed them.

Well the good news is, I don't need to do it now. Am building a new rig, and am going to do a clean install on some nice 10,000rpm Raptors.

Cheers for the help though/