Hard drive question

[TattooingSC]

My computer came with only a 13G hard drive. I installed a 40G as a slave. The 40 is running as drive D. My question is this: Can I copy the contents of C to the new HD, and simply switch the Master/slave config, or if I switch these will I have to reinstall my OS?

 

[Lostman]

No good.

In order to succesfully copy the drives they have to be the same size. Why? Becuase in order for your OS to boot you also need to copy your drives Master Boot Record. The problem is, the MBR also holds the info on how big your dirve is, how big your partitions are, things like that. So unless you can edit (and you can, but not fun) your MBR, you might as well just re-install Linux, I mean Windowz.

Remember that Win is touchy anyway. Don't give it a reason to break down on you.

 

[Inaris]

You can use a tool like Ghost to do a disk to disk copy. Ghost will reconfig the MBR so that it works for the new drive as well. Then just delete all the old stuff from the little drive...

 

[spfd]

yea ghost is good
copys the whole thing.. i can send u a copy that fits in a floppy disk if interested.

 

[TattooingSC]

So If I use Ghost to copy the drive, I can then just switch Master/slave and it'll boot up?

 

[Inaris]

Yup! That is the really cool thing about it. It's like a copy, but it takes everything and works from DOS on almost any partition type NTFS included...

 

[chesman]

i think it is best to just go with a fresh install, les hasle and not that hard at all. just take out teh 13 gig drive and put the 40 as master, format it and put the 13 back in as slave, copy all files over u want backed up, format the 13 gig and use it as storage

Ches
have ag reat day

 

[TattooingSC]

ok, the hard drive thing is the least of my troubles now. I'm on my gf's computer now, as it appears I've fried my motherboard.
I had a feeling I was jumping inside the case too soon, but I figured I couldnt harm the old 450mhz, and so what if I did?
Live and learn, right?
Yes, I'm sure the MB is fried, it doesn't even beep when I pull the memory out.
I guess my next question, since I have all these parts, is what motherboard type will be compatible with what I've got? I just bought a Santa Cruz Turtle beach sound card, and a Nvidea g-force2 video card, and have a 256 mb PC133 memory stick.
I'm here for your amusement, so dont be shy. I couldn't tell one motherboard from another.

 

[trebor]

Hey spfd, i am interested in the ghost copy.