Upgrading to larger HDD

[wiltrot]

Hey there,
I’m having a little problem here. I’ve copied my C: HDD onto another HDD that’s larger. Now I have it (the larger HDD) set up as master on the primary IDE port on the mother board. I put the old HDD – with data still intact - in a removable enclosure that is connected to a PCI card. When I booted the computer it gave me the option to select from multiple OSs, after my selection it went right into loading and everything looked fine. I checked in My Computer and what do I see; the old HDD that is now plugged into the PCI card is still being recognized as the C: drive. The larger HDD which is plugged into the primary IDE port is recognized as the G: drive. I’m running Windows XP Home. As you can see, I’m upgrading to a larger HDD and want to avoid doing a clean install; everything is working great, so no need to. I pulled out the old drive and booted backed up and it stops at the point where the screen turns blue (not the BSD) and has the “Microsoft Windows XP” and logo on top of the phase. I’ll stop here for now and see if someone can help me at this point. Thanks.

[classicsoftware]

How did you copy the files? How did you format, etc. Please post back so we can help ypu resolve this. Appears you did not make the drive bootable. Also, you should have used the utilities from the hard drive manufacturer to copy the entire contents of the old drive to the new drive then you xan wipe the old drive and use it with a drive enclosure

[wiltrot]

I used Partition Magic (boot disk) and copied the old HDD to a larger one. I used one of the larger HDD in my computer (the same computer). I set it Active. I didn't format the drive because there was no partition to format. You can't copy a partition onto another. Is there a difference between copying a partition and copying a disk to a disk? I don't know if the MBR was copied when I copied the partition. I'm just guessing here for I'm still unfamiliar with some of this. It seems to me that is bootable being it got as far as it did. Maybe, I don't know. :confused:

[Paleo Pete]

The best way to go is what classicsoftware suggested. Get the drive manufacturer's installation software and use it. Start over, set the new drive as Master and repartition it using manufacturer's software, it should give you the option to copy all data on the existing drive to the new one. That works very well, I've been using it since before win98 was released. It will copy all data on the old drive to the new one, including a working operating system.

[wiltrot]

I did try to use MAX Blast Plus II. But it was unable to format or copy.
I used Partition/Copy Commander but got the same results as Partition Magic. System Commander tells me that this new drive is set to bootable.
I am able to boot to either the C: or G: drive. If I select the first Windows XP in the list, I'm in the G: drive. If I select the second Windows XP in the list, I'm in the C: drive. It is as though I just installed a second copy of XP on its own partition.

[classicsoftware]

If MaxBlast does not work, you are doing something wrong.

What I do is

1) Set the old hard drive as master on the primary IDE controller.

2) Set the New drive as master on the secondary IDE controller. This means you will disconnect the CD-ROM.

3) Run MaxBlast, download the latest copy.

4) It should recognize the drive ask you for partitioing information. It should be able to get all of the OS information from the original drive.

5) Copy the contents of the old drive to the new drive.

6) Remove the old drive

7) Chnage the new drive to the primary IDE controller. Plug the CD back in.

8) Re-start

9) Set up the old drive in the drive enclosure.

10) Enjoy

If this fails, contact Maxtor tech suport and they will advise you. Just a question, do you have the correct cable for the new drive? 40 pin/80 wire cable?

[wiltrot]

I'm pretty sure I'm doing it right. I've done this many times - of course this doesn't mean I could never do it wrong. It recognized all the drives, I made all the right selections and then I answered the confirmation to proceed. It started the process and then halted saying could not format the partition. Hence it did create a partition. It also said it could not copy. I even tried it with two different versions of Max-Blast, with the same results.
I've added no new devices, just switch things around. I'm using round cables, the same ones with the same drive.

[deddard]

If the disk isn't being partitioned/formatted using utilities, why not simply create the new partitions using a Windoze disk? you can go as far as partitioning/formatting with the windoze disk and then bail out of the installation, and then try running the copy procedure.
I've had problems trying to clone disks (using norton Ghost) on XP/98
machines - used removable caddies, and had all sorts of problems. The automated features in some utilities simply don't like to play all the time, and boot sequences can go all over the place.

When I ran Ghost (from a boot disk - it wouldn't play at all any other way)to clone a disk, it threw up bad clusters/sectors and wouldn't proceed.
I booted again into ghost, and instead of cloning, just ran the integrity check. Following this it copied perfectly (no bad clusters etc, none were detected or fixed)

Whether the same 'falling over it's own feet' is applicable to the way you are doing this is uncertain, but there's always more than one way to proceed - if you are continually beating your head against a brick wall with this, try the windoze route, and then the utilities.

[classicsoftware]

Originally posted by classicsoftware
If this fails, contact Maxtor tech suport and they will advise you. Just a question, do you have the correct cable for the new drive? 40 pin/80 wire cable?

If Maxblast cant partition then you need to follow the advice above or you will eventually have trouble with the drive

[jabarnutcase]

I did try to use MAX Blast Plus II Probably after the fact, but did you try MaxBlast 3 (http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3.htm)? MaxBlast 3 replaces all previous versions of MaxBlast and MaxBlast Plus.
This is the newest addition...I'm not really sure what's going on as I've used Maxblast many times in the past and it's always worked great.

(edit) A little after thought- Are you using FAT32 or NTFS?
As you can see, even Maxblast 3 was released on 03/13/03.
I don't think Maxblast 11 even supported NTFS but I may be wrong- It's been a while.

Maxblast 3 FAQ (http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_lva=&p_li=&p_page=1&p_prod_lvl1=72&p_prod_lvl2=73&p_search_text=&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=3&p_cat_lvl1=%7Eany%7E&p_cat_lvl2=%7Eany%7E)

[wiltrot]

I'm using FAT32. Today I will try it with a different HDD. Thanks for all the advices.

[wiltrot]

Well I decided to revert back to the other HDD for now. I'm just going to move some of the programs over to another HDD, using Ultra Win Cleaner 2000. It's a 20GB; it was down to less than 4GB. Now there's over 6GB and should get more space freed up. I thank you guys for all the help. :)