Installing a new hard drive?

[FD]

TIA,

I'm installing a new hard drive in an older Win XP machine and have a few questions.  Everything is working fine I just want a bigger hard drive on this machine.  A buddy gave me a good hard drive, and I want to install it.  It is a 7,200 rpm drive vs the 5,400 rpm drive I currently have so I don't want two hard drives.

Questions:

Would I be better off creating a mirror image of the current hard drive and then just move that image onto the new hard drive?

Or would it be better to do a fresh install of Win XP, and install from scratch, get all the patches, then move the data over.  As I understand windows builds up junk over time, and even running programs like CCleaner, etc. never gets it 100%.  I've added and removed programs etc.

I don't mind spending the time.

As always thanks!
FD

[PCBruiser]

First, I would suggest you keep the older drive, not as a boot partition, but rather use it for backups.  There is nothing better than having backups available in case of drive failure, etc.  If you decide to mirror it to the new drive, then simply reformat it after mirroring it, and use it for backups.  You can set it as the E: drive. The mirrored boot partition will be C:, then partition the remaining space On the new drive as a new data partition, D:.

Now, if you are willing to do a fresh install, that will be useful and freshen up the system.  Essentially the plan would be the same, new C: and D: partitions on the new drive, and the old drive reformatted as a new E: partition. What I would do is partition the new drive into two partitions.  The first partition for XP and software installs, and the second partition for data.  That will make backups easier with a smaller OS partition, and a larger data one.  Usually, a 50 GB system partition is more than sufficient with the remainder of the drive partitioned and used for data.

Before doing anything else with the new drive, attach it to your system and run a chkdsk /r on it.  The /r switch adds two additional surface tests to the normal three chkdsk tests.  Make sure the drive is working properly before using it.  Then do a long reformat before either mirroring to it or doing a fresh install.

[FD]

Thanks, I was thinking along those lines, only making the first partition 25 GB vs 50, but making it 50 GB is not a problem.  The drive is 1.5TB.  I have other plans for the old drive.  I was thinking or tossing into an old machine and giving it to my brothers kids to play games on.  

Just for the sake of argument, if I wanted to do a fresh install on the old drive, then transfer the image to the new drive is that something that could be done, or is it better to wait?  In other words if I were waiting for a new drive to be shipped, could I set everything up on the old drive and then transfer it to the new drive when it arrived?

[PCBruiser]

Yes, you could do that as long as you have cloning software.  You would install the cloning software to the old drive along with the freshly installed XP and your other software.  Then you would clone all that to the new drive, and the cloning software would allow you to create a new partition equal to or larger than the boot partition from the old drive. 

Say you format the old drive in preparation for the fresh XP with a 25 GB boot partition and the remainder of the drive for data.  You then install the new drive on your system and run the cloning software on the old drive.  That would then clone the boot partition onto the new drive with a partition equal to 25 GB or larger.  Say you choose 50 GB.  After cloning you would have a new boot partition of 50 GB and the remainder of the 1.5 TB unformatted.  Simply format it and then you can easily copy the data from the second partition on the old drive to the new one.  You only need to clone the OS partition.  Data can be copied, system files need to be cloned due to file protection.

Personally, I use EaseUs Todo Backup Free for backups and cloning tasks.  It works just fine for cloning and backup tasks.  You can download it here:  http://www.snapfiles.com/get/easustodo.html. Snap files is the only site I personally use and recommend for absolutely clean shareware and freeware.  There are other equally good tools we recommend in our board on freeware. 

[FD]

Thanks for the helpful info.  Here's what I was thinking, but will probably opt for a clean fresh install of everything instead.

For the sake of learning this is what I was thinking of doing.  Install the new hard drive, checking and formatting it.  I have Macrium Reflect and the boot disk that I created with it.  I was going to set up the PC to boot from the CD drive, put the boot disk in, and then do a system restore from my external hard drive, I have a mirror image of everything on there.  Then set up the partitions and paste the data from the external drive onto the new drive.  Would that method work?

[PCBruiser]

Yes, that would work also.  The advantage of cloning is it is a one step operation, you do not need to create an image and then restore it, you do the cloning directly.   

There are two methods usually used for cloning.  One uses a Windows service called Volume Shadow Copy.  That is a special tool included in Windows that will copy file protected files for you. 

The second method uses a Linux OS boot CD with usually the file gparted.  Gparted is a sophisticated partition, imaging and cloning tool in Linux.  You boot from the CD and then go from there. 

Macrium is fine and will handle either cloning or restoring from an image, whichever you are more comfortable doing.  Neither are destructive of the old hard drive, so until you repartition and format it, it will remain intact.

[FD]

Thanks!  I think I'm going to spend the time and do a fresh install.  There are a lot of programs I can do without on this system.  I was toying around with Win 7 but to be honest I have both Win 7 and Win XP machines and still like XP better.   ..  If there was an emoticon for hiding I'd have used that.  LOL

Any downside to a 25 GB partition for the OS and programs? I have it set a 20 GB now, and am using a little less than 13 GB.

[PCBruiser]

No, the only downside is setting less than you need for the boot/system partition.  BTW, one comment on W7.  It is a fine system, and what Vista should have been.  It is faster, and more stable than XP.  If you have been thinking of updating to W7, and you are going to do a reinstall anyway, and if the cost isn't an issue, this would be a good time to migrate.  From what I have seen so far of W8, I am not impressed.  At this point, W7 is the way to go.

[Hoov]

I will back what PCBruiser said. Windows 7 is a better OS than XP because it uses less resources for the OS. I have installed XP, Vista and Windows 7 on my current laptop and windows 7 runs on it much better, and the computer runs much cooler than with the other 2.

[FD]

Thanks guys. Having both Win 7 and XP I most likely will stick with XP, at least for now.   I'm a little short on cash, which makes the decision a bit easier.  Also this machine is a P4 with 2GB of Ram so I don't really know if I'd benefit much from Win 7.

Is there any particular order for installing Win XP?  I read a few different ways of doing it and they weren't the same.

I was thinking
OS
Patches for Win XP
Office
Quicken
AVG Antivirus
Super Anti-Spyware
Malwarebytes Anti-malware
CCleaner

Would the order for Win 7 be the same?

FD

[PCBruiser]

W7 is a little different because it generally discovers all your hardware and installs all the drivers automatically.  It is somewhat unusual that some hardware or the other is not successfully found during the install.  So the sequence is usually much easier.  Install W7, do all updates, boot when asked to, then go directly to your Security packages and then your other software.  

With XP, the order is somewhat different from what you suggested.  Also remember to reboot XP after each of the earlier patches, Service packs and major drivers.  Here is the install sequence I use for XP:

XP (with whatever SP level you have)
Network (Ethernet drivers - you need that for the SP and updates installs)
Each service pack following the one you installed with the CD installer.  (use the downloadable redistributable versions if possible)
All the patches and updates
Chipset drivers (you may need to do this earlier before the Ethernet driver to get it working depending on hardware)
Video drivers
Sound drivers
DirectX. (use the downloadable redistributable version if possible)
Your security packages
Keyboard drivers
Mouse drivers
Any other remaining hardware drivers
Your software, any order that makes sense to you

Remember to reboot after each step until you get to your software.

One thing to understand about W7 is it is more efficient than XP in utilizing hardware.  It will actually run faster and use less hardware resources than XP.  So your hardware should be sufficient, and actually perform better with W7.  Since cost is a factor for you, I would stick to XP for the moment, and then upgrade when you can.  Remember, support for XP will start to phase out shortly.  I don't recall the actual date, but it is in the next year or so, IIRC.  Also remember that you cannot simply install W7 over XP.  You must do a fresh install.  The upgrade versions only check to see if you have a valid activated copy of XP on your system.  If so, it then wipes XP and installs W7 fresh.  You can upgrade from Vista without doing a reinstall of everything, but not from XP.

[FD]

Thanks for the replies:

I ran a tool to see if upgrading would be a good idea, and it appears I'd probably be better off with XP. 

Here is a comment from running the software to check if the update makes sense.  This is a Dell 3100 p4 machine with 2 GB of Ram.

Your current graphics adapter won't support the Windows Aero user interface. If you want to experience the benefits of Windows Aero, contact your PC manufacturer or retailer to see if an upgrade is available.

I think I'm out of luck.  IIRC XP had all the drivers I needed for this machine, so a fresh install of XP shouldn't be terrible. I enjoy tinkering with this machine, and learning, and this site is a great place to learn!

 I already have a laptop, Intel i7 chip and 8 GB ram running Win 7, so sinking money into this machine is out of the question.

[PCBruiser]

Understood.  That additional info clarifies the situation.  I think you are correct going with XP under the circumstances.  I wouldn't sink any additional money into an older system just to upgrade to W7 either at this point in time. 

With the ongoing evolution in hardware, and the appearances of new types of systems, tablets for example, I'd wait and see what my needs are and the future brings.  My family got me an iPad for Christmas, and I like it so much I am really not using my big desktop system anywhere as much now.  And, my laptop sees almost no use at all.  My wife, who also got an iPad, is in a similar situation.  The only time she uses her various Windows systems is for business.  Otherwise, the iPad does everything we need done, and is far more convenient to use.  Wait and see what develops before investing more in hardware.  Smart.

[FD]

I was looking for info, but as far as I can tell it isn't worth the expense. The good news is I can always salvage the new hard drive. Then if someone I know is tossing out an old PC, newer than this one, I can always utilize the hard drive and upgrade to Win 7 or Win 8 for that matter. I do enjoy working on computers and learning more about them.  Thanks for the help! 

[PCBruiser]

You are welcome.  This was a good discussion.  Hopefully it will also provide other members here with things to consider along the upgrade path.