NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article
Hard Drive Cloning
by David Muscato, Las Vegas PC Users Group, April 2002
fastlane@lvdi.net
(click to email author)


A while back I bought a Hewlett_Packard 6735 Pavilion machine. It came with a (Seagate) 10 or 15 Gig hard drive and Windows ME pre_installed along with a number of other bundled programs, none of which came with an "installable" CD, just the typical OEM resource recovery type CD so a successful reformat and new install of Windows ME on my 30 Gig Maxtor was out of the question.

I went to CompUSA,and after being assured by the sales clerk at the register that Drive Image is Win ME compatible, I purchased a copy. Skeptic that I am, I immediately went to PowerQuests' website and still saw no indication of Win ME compatibility so I had to wait until Monday to contact their support department by voice. Sure enough, their software had yet to achieve Win ME compatibility so it was back to CompUSA for a credit and a likely long wait before I could use my Maxtor as the primary master.

On Windows_Help.Net I came across an article on drive cloning using the xcopy32 command and sure enough it worked like a charm.

DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS ON COMPRESSED HARD DRIVE(S) OR DRIVE(S) USING TRANSLATION SOFTWARE.

** My drives are EIDE. I do not know if this is safe for use on SCSI drives.

If you don't have two machines using the same version operating system you may need to disconnect your C: drive while you reformat or partition and format the target drive for use in which case, boot from a startup diskette created by the same operating system you will be using, use the Fdisk and/or Format commands then reinstall the source drive (C:) as primary master and the target drive as primary slave or secondary master, jumper and cable accordingly.

Restart the computer (suggest you verify proper drive parameters are properly set in CMOS at this time), when Windows has loaded, click Start then Run and enter the following in the Run box XCOPY32.EXE /c /h /e /k C:*.* D: then click OK.

** CAVEAT **
You MUST enter the command line in the Run box off of the start button, NOT from a DOS prompt or window !

/e continues the operation if an error is encountered (the swap file causes an error).

Switch information can be obtained by typing xcopy32 /? /p in the "Run" box off of the Start button.

When the xcopy operation is completed, shut down, reinstall the target drive as primary master (and the source and primary slave or secondary master or door stop), set jumpers and cabling accordingly.

Restart Windows in SAFE MODE. When Windows has loaded, right click my computer, then properties then performance and click virtual memory at the bottom to re_establish the swap file on the drive. Click ok a couple of times and click ok to restart the system, start in normal or logged mode and you should be up and running.

There is no restriction against any non-profit group using the article as long as it is kept in context, with proper credit given to the author. This article is brought to you by the Editorial Committee of the Association of Personal Computer User Groups (APCUG), an International organization. Please let David know if you use his article.

Click here to return to top



==================================================================