I have to migrate my OS from one drive to another, can you tell me if this will work?

Question

Please tell me if this will work:

I have two drives, C is where Windows is installed and is near full, E is an empty drive. I'm going to compress E drive, copy the entire C drive and then paste it into E drive. Then format the C drive, and compress it for future data storage. Now the computer has to boot up from the E drive, can the computer automatically boot from E drive or do I have to do something? I'm using XP.

Thanks.

Answer 1

if you are saying you have two hard drives and you are using one as a slave {e} -
When you add a hard drive, it's usually designated in the BIOS as primary or secondary. Primary is, of course, the boot drive, and is where Windows expects to be installed. Typically when you install a second drive, it will be the secondary, and not participate in the boot process at all.

If your new drive had been installed as primary by mistake, I would have expected your first reboot thereafter to fail, because the new drive would not have an operating system on it. Unless, perhaps, your BIOS is smart enough to check all drives.

When you install Windows, it will also present you with an opportunity to upgrade in existing installation, or set up a new one. In the later case, you could certainly have selected the new drive.

But the bottom line is that why it installed on the new drive may impact the success of the suggestions to follow.

Moving an existing installation of Windows is theoretically possible, but I would consider it risky. I'd expect it would be easy for many things to go wrong, putting you back where you started, or worse.

So the ultimate answer to your question is no, I would not recommend attempting to move the operating system.

In your shoes I would try one thing: swapping the hard drives. I started by pointing out that the drives are primary and secondary, and it's apparently installed the new operating system on the wrong drive. Make that drive the primary, and see if that results in what you want. Exactly how to do this will vary on your motherboard, your bios, and your drive types. And, ultimately, it may not work. Depending on the exact configuration you ended up with, I can think of several issues that might invalidate this attempt.

That brings me to what I'd expect to be required: reinstall. Or rather, re-upgrade, making sure that the upgrade happens to the drive you expect. I might even go so far as to remove the second drive, perform the upgrade, make sure it's all working and then re-install the new drive, and make sure that you're still booting form the old one with the properly upgraded operating system.

copy from leo.com

Answer 2

No, this won't work. The OS takes over from your BIOS and needs to be integrated into your disk. Some programs like Ghost will let you copy it but it is an involved processes. You can't even install the OS on your E drive and then copy it over since the addresses will not align. If you can move the stuff from your E drive and install you OS onto it then reinstall the programs you want to keep and copy the folders from the C drive to it. Move the jumpers or cable position so that your E drive is you boot (C) drive and you're in business.

Answer 3

There are many ways of doing it some better than others, my way of doing this is buy either using the software that comes with the hard drive, or backing up your data then simply installing windows Xp your new drive and making your old drive as the slave for future file storage.

Answer 4

What you're proposing will not work.

What you should consider before wanting to move the Windows system files is whether or not it is actually necessary. If you have a large amount of digital photos, music, and movies, consider moving those files over to the E: drive. In fact move everything you can besides Windows files and program files over to the E: drive. Then see how much space you have in the C: drive. You could even uninstall programs that are on the C: drive, and re-install them to the E: drive (usually by clicking a 'custom' button early in the installation process).

Answer 5

maybe Boot Commander or something, but once you assign the boot drive path I dont think that it can be easily changed.

Why don't you just do a drive to drive copy with any backup software... then change the hard drives physically so that the e: is now the C:... Surely that is the best route.

Answer 6

Just copying won't work, you need to create a disk image. Your new drive probably includes drive cloning software from the manufacturer to do this, or else look on the manufacturer's website.

Answer 7

Once you create your disk image you will have to change your Hard Drive from Master to Slave. And your other Hard Drive from Slave to Master.