Clone A Hard Drive --- For Free

Clone A Hard Drive--- For Free

Stanley Walter Reynolds worked out a way to clone/copy a drive using software you already have--- for free!
Plug your new hard drive into the system (remember to set the jumper settings if necessary).
Boot the system and run FDISK (instructions vary by version of Windows). (When FDISK asks, use Large disk)
Once the drive is partitioned, you can reboot and format the drive. Double click on My Computer and then right-click on the added drive. Select "Format" and then format the drive.
Initially, Windows wants to "Quick" format the drive. I haven't found any difference in the time required to format the drive in quick or full mode, but you get a complaint if the drive has a fresh partition before you format it.

Once the drive is formatted, you can clone your current version of Windows 9x/ME to the new disk by selecting

     Start
     Run
     Command
     sys d: (assuming the new drive is D:)
     xcopy /h/e/c/k/r/y c\ d\

This procedure can take a while, but when it's done, the new disk is an exact copy of the old disk (sans the open files).
If your Windows is so corrupt that it will only run in Safe mode, you can still do this, but it takes longer.

As far as I can tell, the open files are all Windows files and will be recreated the next time Windows boots, so no data will be lost.
Now the new drive can be made into drive "C." If necessary, set the jumpers on the drive so it is Master, and remove the old hard drive. I suspect that this procedure will work in Windows 2000, but I haven't tried it yet.

Occasionally the procedure doesn't work alone, so the you may also need to do the following

If the drive wasn't drive "C" when it was FDISKed, you will need to boot from a floppy which contains FDISK. Once at the A:> prompt, run FDISK again and select option 2 to make your disk bootable. Reboot the system.
If it still doesn't boot, you will need a bootable floppy with SYS.EXE on it. Reboot and at the A:> prompt, run SYS C: .

After you get the "System Transferred" message, you can reboot and you have successfully cloned your old system to a new hard drive.

This is a free way to clone your hard drive. Ghost and Power Quest offer simpler ways to clone your hard drive, but you have to pay to use them.

[report a broken link by clicking here]

AS400Pro.com Welcome IBM i - AS/400 - i5 - iSeries Professionals

Clone A Hard Drive --- For Free