Getting a New Hard Drive

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

For various reasons I have decided to get a new hard drive, mostly for space reasons, but other things as well. A few things about this concern me.

 

First and foremost, the computer is 9 years old, but other than the hard drive filling up still works well. However, the OS is WinXP, SP3 with all the updates up until Microsoft ended support. I do have the original Win install disk from way back when, so installing XP on the new drive should be no issue. Will getting all the updates that were published for XP be one (other than the m[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ive time installing years and years worth of updates takes)?

 

Ideally, I would like to know if there is a way to simply "copy" all the data off what will then be the "old" hard drive onto the new harddrive (looking at a 1TB SATA from NewEgg)? That would be fantastic if I could do that. My case has three SATA Hardrive slots and only the original 250GB HD is installed.

 

I would hope I could install the new 1TB, let the system find it and [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign a drive number, copy from the old drive to the newly installed drive, remove the old drive and re[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign the new drive as the "C:\" drive.

 

A second option, and this I already know how to do, is simply install the new drive in one of the open SATA slots and then move or reinstall my high volume games (FS9/FSX/Garry's Mod (for my grandson...honest)/ETC over to the 1TB drive and then have the Flight One Updater "find" the flightsim new locations. But I'm also considering an upgrade to Win7 in the future when cash flow is better. (don't want to mess with Win8 no matter how many of you tell me how simple it is to work with).

 

I'm sure I will get lots of "why bother, just buy a new system". I'm okay with that, but not willing to do that at this immediate time. So, let's go with what I've given you to work with and see where we end up, okay?

 

Randy

[Darrol Larrok 1140797]

I did successfully migrate an entire system from a 50Gb drive to a 1TB drive, but this was on Win 7.

 

What I did was image the old drive onto the new one into a 50gb partition, then use the windows partition manager to expand that partition to fill the drive

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Perfect, Thanks Darrol...

 

Randy

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Okay, I successfully installed and allocated the new 1TB SATA HD using Disk Management from the control panels' Adminstrative Tools function. I went with the preselected "L:/" name as the next available drive on the list.

 

I then migrated/cloned the data, including the WinXP SP3 OS, from my factory installed 250GB SATA HD onto a 1TB SATA HD using a program called TODO EASUS. It cloned my D:/ Partition (System Restore) from the factory onto the new HD as H:/ and cloned the C:/ Partition with the OS onto the new one as G:/. Don't know what happened to L:/

 

I've compared the two sets of data as best I can and the two look identical in everyway. Files are clickable and searchable and appear to be intact. Being reluctant to just arbitrarily remove the C:/ from the machine I simply restarted the machine after the cloning process was completed. I got no farther than a black screen that said a driver was missing and Windows would shut down. Selecting "OK" merely started a loop that came back to the same warning. I pressed "F2" during the boot process, went into BIOS, and made the 1TB HD the boot drive.

 

All was golden, system started up just fine, or so it seemed. I left the C:/ inplace, making the G drive the master and the C: drive the slave, which I think is not essential really with a SATA drive, only the older IDE/ATAPI style.

 

Anyway, used the system for the better part of an entire morning and no issues, so I let my grandson play Garry's Mod on it for the rest of the day. He was going into withdrawals...

 

At some point, my sound card (Real Tek) quit working for him and a warning of "Generic Win Host 32.dll missing or corrupt" warning kept popping up. A restart sometimes generated that warning and sometimes did not. Reading up on the warning revealed it is actually the result of the previous startup, not the current one...so you never really know if it's fixed (microsoft does have a "KB8XXXXXX" Hotfix for the problem in WinXP) without restarting twice.

 

I wondered if the sound issue might be a corrupt driver so I downloaded a new driver from the Real Tek site. Previously, upon opening the Sound Control Panel it said no device was installed. Yet looking in the control panel show the Real Tek device installed and working properly. After installing the new driver the control panel recognized my USB Headset as the sound device and all sounds played through it. No system sound though through the installed card so I rolled back to the previous driver.

 

On a whim I looked at the registry with regedit (made no changes, though...fooling with the registry scares the daylights out of me). Looking at Startup and Setup it appeared that the system was drawing from both the C:/ drive and the G:/ drive during startup.

 

I tried renaming C to X and G to C, but it would not let me, getting a "Page File" warning about the renaming the C drive. I tried completely removing the factory hard drive with disastrous results. Black screen, shutdown, restart in a continous loop. I decided that although the system was booting from the G:/ drive that it was drawing files/drivers from the C:/ drive as well that were critical to the OS.

 

So I reinstalled the C:/ Drive, made it the boot drive through BIOS, and system sound came back just fine and no more "Generic Host..." warning (which I continued to get despite the HotFix) after 10 restarts now.

 

I've been to so many websites and read so many articles I'm numb. I have a perfectly good 1TB HD that is useless for anything except storage. At this point I'm considering wiping it clean and then reinstalling all my critical stuff like FS9, FSX, ASE, etc, there and deleting them from the C:/ drive freeing up valuable space there. But God, I have so many addons for both, freeware and payware, aircraft and sceneries that the prospect of that seems daunting.

 

I noticed when looking at the registry that data location for the startup data was sometimes in G:/ and sometimes (usually actually) in C:/ Drive. If the data cloned successfully, the data it draws from off C:/ should be in the corresponding same location on G:/ as well. Is it a simple process of editing the registry so that all pointers to data in C:/ point to G:/ instead?

 

Just brainstorming here before I call in the pros. Depending on the potential costs from our local version of the "Geek Squad" it may be simpler just to buy and install a new OS on the 1TB Drive and move away from XP...but gosh it works so well with picky programs. Besides, if I did that I would want Win7, not Win8. Can you even buy Win7 anymore? Is it cheaper to upgrade XP to Win7 or just buy it outright, [Mod - Happy Thoughts]uming it's still available for purchase?

 

Again, just brainstorming. I'd rather go with what I have and the innumerable resources available to me through you, my very own team of like minded experts...wink, wink, nudge, nudge...

 

Randy

[Richard Gerrish]

Check your PM my friend. If you close to Sin City let me know I might be able to lend a hand(or software)

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Update to the issue. Started up my system this morning, still booting off the factory drive not the 1TB new disk, and checking "My Computer" I noticed that the 1TB drive had been arbitrarily renamed from the G:/ and H:/ Partitions to L:/ and U:/ for some reason. If you remember, I originally let the system name identify the drive as L:/ but after a restart it had been identified as G:/ for some reason, which is really a "drive" to insert a camera/phone sim card.

 

Anyway, answered your PM Richard.

 

Randy

[Darrol Larrok 1140797]

I'm not sure why it's not letting you take C to X and G to C, as that is what I did when I cloned my drive. Here's a suggestion, since it's bringing up the page file:

 

Create a new partition, name it whatever, and put the paging file on it, then try C to X and G to C.

[Randy Tyndall 1087023]

Okay Everyone, Time for an update.

 

I am successfully running WinXP, SP3 off the newly installed WD 1TB SATA HD.

 

Here's how I did it without...without I repeat...having to use an OS Install Disk. Note, I would only use this process if you are using WinXP and the only reason I would do it is because Microsoft has ended support for XP.

 

1). I bought a 1TB HD ($58 New from NewEgg, $19 reconditioned...I got new) to replace the 250GB HD that originally came with the computer and was 9 years old and 38GB short of being full.

 

2). I installed and allocated the new drive using Control Panel's Computer/Disk Management function. Took about 4 hours for the disk to be formatted/allocated/recognized by the computer.

 

3). I downloaded and installed EaseUS Todo Backup freeware utility from cnet.

 

4). I used the "Clone" function of EaseUS Todo to create a mirror image of my default 9-year old hardrive onto the new 1TB HD. Took about 7 hours to clone the entire drive (both the D:\ and C:\ Partitions).

 

5). Verified that the two drives were identical in every way I could (lotta file comparing) other than size of drive and names. Took the better part of a full day to do this. Hope someone jumps in here with an easier/quicker way.

 

6). Opened the Tower with Computer turned off and removed the old drive from the #1 HD slot completely. I did not rename any drives before doing this. I tried earlier to do that (see my post above) and it wouldn't let me.

 

7). Moved the New Drive from the #3 slot into the now empty #1 slot (I have a 150GB drive for data storage only in the #2 slot). I did not do any "Disable/Enable/Install New Hardware" actions through Control Panel. I did not edit the registry. I simply removed one drive and moved another. That's it.

 

. Started my computer and Windows started just fine. It said it found new hardware installed and said to restart my computer to complete the installation so the device could be used.

 

9). Restarted Computer. Windows started just fine again, exactly how I have been seeing it start for 9 years. Looked at the drives with Windows Explorer and lo and behold, the new drive had the partitions renamed to D:\ and C:\ all on it's own.

 

Been using it for almost a day now and everything seems to function the way it should, or at least the way I expect it should. Sound working properly and no Generic Host Win32.dll errors yet. I'm gonna keep the old removed disk safely stored in the anti-static sleeve and box the new drive came in for awhile...just in case. I'll let you know if anything comes up, but I think this thread is "closed".

 

Thanks to everyone who helped walk me through this.

 

Randy

 

UPDATE: None of my payware licences were recognized when I started flightsim (FS9), even after running the Flight 1 Registry tool. Had to reinstall ASE, REX, PMDG, Level D, Wilco, PSS, all of them. Luckily I kept all my receipts, paperwork, and emails with keys. Keep that in mind and gather all that up before you start the switch.

 

Freewares and defaults seem to be doing fine. FSUIPC, the registered version, had to be reistalled and re-registered. FSInn had to be redone. Some I could just do a "Repair" on from the control panel "Add New Hardware" page. If it had a key or a license, like the SSTSIM Concorde, I had to reinstall. So far my payware sceneries appear to be good, just have to load each aircraft into flightsim one at a time and check each scenery one at a time to see what works and what needs fixing.

 

Wish I could remember all the "tweaks" I did here and there to get where I was before the switch, like blacker tires for the PMDG B1900D and the cargo door switch for the PMDG B737NG that installs into the overhead panel.

 

Just have to fly them all until I get a "hey wait, wasn't there..." moment. Hope ATC understands when I get back to flying.