When upgrading and changing hard drives mean i have to buy Windows OS again?

Question

When upgrading and changing hard drives mean i have to buy Windows OS again? Well when I upgrade/change my hard drive the files to run Windows won't be there anymore, Neither will the drivers for my DVD-ROM drive, USB, aor anything else will be there too.

I want to buy a computer off dell and I noticed that buying the cheapest hard drive and upgrading when you get it is cheaper rather than buying the huge 500GB (or whatever) model right off the site. This is why I don't want and external drive, I need a laptop, external components defeat the purpose of portability.

Is there a way to copy ALL files to my hard drive before it become the C/ drive. I think that microsoft would make it impossible to do this since you can make free copies of windows.

Answer 1

If you bought your computer new, you should have gotten an image recovery disk. If you didn't, you may still have time to call the manufacturer and ask for it. I did. If you already have one, all you need to do is install the new HDD and re-image the hard disk. It's pretty easy.

You can copy an operating system to another HDD, but you need imaging software (like Norton Ghost) to do it. Norton has a trial copy of Ghost on their website. Try it first before you buy it.

Answer 2

you should have a cd copy of windows that came with your computer, if not then you will have a backupcopy on your hard drive, it is what is known as the systems restore,

If your going to buy a Dell computer, ask them about Ubuntu Linux 64 bit system, they are starting to install it on their new systems, it is a better operating system than windows Vista, more secure faster, and all the software is free, you will get all the software you will ever need FREE,

Now if you don't want to buy a new computer, only the hard drive, then do that, and download Ubuntu Linux windows from the web link below, do some home work (research) into Linux


All the big computer manufactures have been using linux for years in the business world, but never mentioned this to joe public,

Linux is used by NASA, the US army, Navy and Air force and the internet, mobile phones, and big businesses, linux is free.

So download the live CD and run it from the cd without installing it onto your system, it will find all your hardware, if you have broard band you will be able to get on the internet from the CD, play with it till you get to know it it is easy to learn,

what your computer needs,
A minimum of 256 meg of ram to run it from the cd rom

Answer 3

I have tried this before. What I would suggest is you mount the new drive on your CDROM cable, then format it. Then using explorer, drag your c: drive to d:. This should copy all the files.

You will not be able to boot to d:, as this is protected by windows.

Shutdown the o/s and take the two drives and switch the cables. Now your new drive is c: If this boots correctly, you are finished. If not, reinstall your cd drive, boot from your CD distribution and do a repair.

Answer 4

i do no longer propose you to place in abode windows ninety 8 fairly of XP. abode windows ninety 8 has relatively some bugs and works undesirable with huge RAM. besides the undeniable fact that there ought to be no subject in you pc in case you will set up the abode windows ninety 8 on it. attempt right here: a million. Boot from floppy or restoration CD. 2. format your drives to FAT32 3. set up abode windows ninety 8 it is better way so you might have 2 OSs - abode windows XP and abode windows ninety 8 on your pc. examine right here articles.

Answer 5

Most new drives come with a utility disk that allows you to copy the OS to a new drive !!

Answer 6

You can have 2 hard drives in at once.

Answer 7

What you need is .......
Norton Ghost, that can clone the Dell HD to your new HD, keeping everything in tact.