Copy Drive Wizard window

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I have a Dell 8400 with an 80 GB Seagate SATA hard drive running Windows XP service pack 2.  I purchased  and want to replace the current hard drive with a  Western Digital 250GB Sata Caviar 2500 hard drive.  I want to keep the original 80GB as a backup drive but not on the computer.  I am confused as to which options to choose in Copy Drive Wizard (yes, I have read the manual on the subject!).   Also, I need to know if I am doing this right!  I am going to physically install the new the new hard drive.  Then boot the computer leaving both drives attached.  Then I was going to start the Ghost program and use the Copy My Hard Drive Tool.  I understand that since I am copying the original image to the new hard drive that I don't have to format and partititon the new hard drive, is this correct? 

When I get to the Resize Drive To Fill Unallocated Space choice, what do I choose?  How about Disable SmartSector Copying and the other choices that follow?  After the files are copied to the new hard drive I was going to shut down, remove the old hard drive and then move the SATA data cable on the new hard drive from the SATA 1 connection on the motherboard to the SATA 0 connection on the motherboard (according the manual that came with my Dell this is the connection for the bootable drive).  As you can see I have become a real novice with this new technology and have a hard time with the terms.  For a 66 year old I do pretty good but Ghost is a powerful program and I am worried about messing up!  Thanks

Thanks for advice!  I wonder if I could just use the Symantec System Recovery System Disk as my boot disk?  I have attempted to make a custom system recovery disk a couple of times now but have been unsuccessful.  I get all the way to the program getting ready to copy to the CD and the program just hangs!  I have Roxio Drag to Disk program running and I am wondering if that may interfere with the Ghost copy program although I successfully copied My Documents to  DVDs with the Roxio program running so maybe not.  I really feel that Norton Ghost is a wonderful program but maybe just a little too technical for me.  Again thanks for answering my question and so soon!!!Marlene

You should be able to do so.  Remember when you are making the cd, it will be a bootable cd (you are creating an ISO image file, not a data cd).  This could be why it is hanging.  I believe that there is a 'create a bootable system disk' or something like that on the ghost recovery cd.  If this is the case, run that and it should create the .iso file for you.  Then if you double click that file it should start Roxio and create the boot cd for you.  You must start with a blank cd, not one that has been formatted by drag to disk, as those are data disks.  You can exit the Roxio Drag to disk program if you want, but you shouldn't have to.  Good luck

 

After several unsuccessful attempts I think Ghost gave in and copied files to the CD.  Unfortunately when tested the CD would not boot my computer.  I decided that since I had my computer booting from the CD/DVD drive anyway, I would test the Ghost program disk to see if I could use that.  It worked beautifully.  So I have given up on making a custom bootable disk (I have a bootable floppy I made some time ago for an emergency and it works also!).  Thanks for the info on not using a fomatted CD.  I think that may be my problem!  Marlene

It should work for you.  I did the same thing going from an 80 to 250.  Once you remove the 80 (or make it the second drive for more space or as a backup drive) everything should work for you very nicely.

 

The beauty of this is that if you screw up as long as you didn't write to the original drive (you copied in the right direction) you can always do it over and try the other options to see how they affect you.  I copied mine using the boot disk, so windows isn't running and there is almost no way to screw it up.

 

Enjoy the new drive.

 

Phil