NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
DriveCopy 4.0 From PowerQuest
by Pat Kennedy, November 2001
patagram@cox-internet.com
(click to email author)


My old hard drives were crying out for relief - too many installed programs , downloaded MP3's, pictures stored, documents saved, etc. etc., so I took part of my tax rebate money and bought a new IBM 40GB Deskstar hard drive.

I had two operating system partitions, Windows XP (preview version) and Windows ME, plus several data partitions on two different drives to copy. To copy my drive contents, I decided to use DriveCopy 4.0 which is a DOS utility designed to copy the entire contents or selected partitions from one hard drive to another to be used in the same computer. DriveCopy is not intended for use in setting up a hard disk that will be used in another computer. It will support most partition types.

I took the slave drive out of my system and replaced it with the new drive as the slave drive. The DriveCopy Quick Reference Guide walked me through step-by-step on how to install my new hard drive and reboot.

I knew DriveCopy 4.0 might not be compatible with my preview version of Windows XP, but I decided to try to run it anyway out of Windows XP. When I inserted the CD, I was presented with two choices:

1) Run from Virtual Floppy or
2) Create Program Diskettes.

Choosing Run from Virtual Floppy will run DriveCopy on the next reboot, at which time the program files necessary to run DriveCopy will be loaded temporarily to the hard drive.

Choosing Create Program Diskettes allows booting from a floppy disk to run DriveCopy.

I chose the first option, Run from Virtual Floppy, but when I rebooted the computer the program did not load properly in Windows XP, so I started over, choosing the second option which was to create the program diskettes. This time DriveCopy began the copy of the old drive to the new, but froze the system after about 15 minutes during copy of the Windows XP partition.

Of course I lost no data from the source drive because of this failure. Even if the power should fail during a copy operation, no data would be lost from the source drive. The new DriveCopy 5.0 should be compatible with Windows XP.

I started over and booted to the Windows ME partition. I chose Run from Virtual Floppy. The program installed needed items and prompted me to reboot if the drive was already installed or to "shut down" if I needed to physically install the new drive. I still had the drive installed as a slave. This time upon rebooting it brought up DriveCopy and I got to a screen with three choices.

    1) Verify Disk Configuration. (This presents a detailed partition layout of each drive. If you are using drive overlay software, be sure to verify that the disk space is shown correctly.)
    2) Entire Disk to Disk Copy.
    3) Selective Partition Copy.

I chose Disk to Disk and selected the old drive as the source and the new drive as the destination. I selected the copy type as Replace, which hides the partitions on the old drive after copying to prevent file damage that might occur from having two OS's visible at the same time. I chose Fast Mode to copy the data quickly. Choosing Safe Mode would perform integrity checks but also would take more time.

This time the copying operation completed and I shut down the computer and set the jumpers so that the new drive would be the master drive. I took my other old hard drive and set it as the slave. I rebooted and checked the BIOS to be sure both drives were recognized properly. If you have more than one OS and are using BootMagic as I was, you may need to have your BootMagic rescue diskette handy in order to access all Operating Systems and reset the BootMagic configuration.

I rebooted successfully to Windows XP, then again to Windows ME and checked partition sizes and verified random files to be sure everything had copied correctly. Everything looked good.

In order to copy the other old hard drive which had two data partitions on it, I decided to make the boot floppies out of Windows ME and copy one partition at a time in order to test the Selective Partition Copy function. I rebooted from the floppy disk and DriveCopy walked me through step-by-step. After I copied the partitions I again compared partition sizes, checked selective files and determined that the partitions had each been copied successfully. I had finished the task of copying everything from both old drives to the new drive.

Powerquest's DriveCopy 4.0 is an easy to follow program as instructions are presented step-by-step. If you are using Drive Overlay software (in case you have an older system that does not show all the space on the new hard drive), or if you are not really familiar with the steps involved in installing hard drives and copying old drives, be sure to review the manual before you begin so that you get a complete overview of how the process works and to see if there are any special instructions unique to your OS or computer.

User group members may purchase DriveCopy v4 at a special price of $25 by ordering from the secure web site at www.ugr.com/order/. Indicate the special price code of UGEVAL01 with your order.

PowerQuest has a free monthly electronic newsletter that is dedicated to official announcements, tips, and techniques for PowerQuest products. You can view the newsletter online at www.powerquest.com/newsletter .

PowerQuest can be reached at:

Voice: 801-437-8900
Fax: 801-226-8941
Web site: http://www.powerquest.com
E-mail: drivecopy@powerquest.com

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