Posted: 4/26/2009 5:17:08 PM EDT
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My SIL has an HP desktop with XP PRO that is just friggin flat out of disk space (60 GB). I installed a 500GB for them to put the music and other stuff on, but the kids keep putting stuff on the C: and clogging it up. SO, I want to swap the 500 and the 60, making the 500 the C: drive. Her primary drive has the "HP RECOVERY (D:)" partition and what I'm wondering is this:
Can I copy that partition to an external drive, wipe both her drives, reload the Recovery partition to the 500Gb and go from there? Or would it be easier for me to just wipe both drives, repartition the primary making it a single volume again, and use my XP PRO installation disk (but her key from the case sticker) on the 500GB and hope that all the MB and peripheral drivers load? What say you? |
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Reinstall using the factory disks. They'll recreate the system partition, won't fail on license code issues, and will have drivers you'll be glad for.
On the downside, they'll clog the thing up with factory bullshit software too, so be prepared to clean that out. |
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Reinstall using the factory disks. They'll recreate the system partition, won't fail on license code issues, and will have drivers you'll be glad for. On the downside, they'll clog the thing up with factory bullshit software too, so be prepared to clean that out. It doesn't have "factory disks"., it has a recovery partition. How now brown cow? |
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Reinstall using the factory disks. They'll recreate the system partition, won't fail on license code issues, and will have drivers you'll be glad for. On the downside, they'll clog the thing up with factory bullshit software too, so be prepared to clean that out. It doesn't have "factory disks"., it has a recovery partition. How now brown cow? MAX BLAST 5 |
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If it were me, I'd install the new 500GB drive and create the number of partitions that I wanted, making the first partition "active". Then I'd use Ghost to copy the c drive from the old 60GB hard drive to the first partition on the 500GB drive. Then just boot the computer and everything will be as it was except you'll have alot more free space. We're talking 15 minutes tops to swap out the hard drives and Ghost the image.
If you want to retain the 60GB drive as extra hard drive space, then leave it hooked up and repartition it the way you want after copying everything from it. |
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If it were me, I'd install the new 500GB drive and create the number of partitions that I wanted, making the first partition "active". Then I'd use Ghost to copy the c drive from the old 60GB hard drive to the first partition on the 500GB drive. Then just boot the computer and everything will be as it was except you'll have alot more free space. We're talking 15 minutes tops to swap out the hard drives and Ghost the image. If you want to retain the 60GB drive as extra hard drive space, then leave it hooked up and repartition it the way you want after copying everything from it. I don't have any ghosting software. Plus I want their PC to be as "clean" as possible. Her kids have DL'd so much CRAP on this thing, it's ridiculous. |
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If it were me, I'd install the new 500GB drive and create the number of partitions that I wanted, making the first partition "active". Then I'd use Ghost to copy the c drive from the old 60GB hard drive to the first partition on the 500GB drive. Then just boot the computer and everything will be as it was except you'll have alot more free space. We're talking 15 minutes tops to swap out the hard drives and Ghost the image. If you want to retain the 60GB drive as extra hard drive space, then leave it hooked up and repartition it the way you want after copying everything from it. I don't have any ghosting software. Plus I want their PC to be as "clean" as possible. Her kids have DL'd so much CRAP on this thing, it's ridiculous. OK...then I'd hook up the new drive, partition it, and do a fresh install of WinXP (I hate OEM installs, so I wouldn't use the HP recovery method). Then hook up the old drive as a second drive, and then copy everything that you need from it to the new drive. Then you have to go to HP's website and download and install all the drivers for that system. |
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That's what I was thinking. I was just worried that since it's a prebuilt PC it may be difficult to obtain any drivers that Windows doesn't auto load. HP should have all the drivers on their webpage for that particular system. Download them first and put them on a USB drive or a CD before installing WinXP. That way you don't have to worry about needing a network card driver to get internet access. |
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That's what I was thinking. I was just worried that since it's a prebuilt PC it may be difficult to obtain any drivers that Windows doesn't auto load. HP should have all the drivers on their webpage for that particular system. Download them first and put them on a USB drive or a CD before installing WinXP. That way you don't have to worry about needing a driver to get internet access. I could just use My pc to get them and put them on a flash drive. Thanks guys. |
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Reinstall using the factory disks. They'll recreate the system partition, won't fail on license code issues, and will have drivers you'll be glad for. On the downside, they'll clog the thing up with factory bullshit software too, so be prepared to clean that out. It doesn't have "factory disks"., it has a recovery partition. How now brown cow? Ohhh you gotta be all tricky. The Max Blast should work. Just a copy might not. |
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Reinstall using the factory disks. They'll recreate the system partition, won't fail on license code issues, and will have drivers you'll be glad for. On the downside, they'll clog the thing up with factory bullshit software too, so be prepared to clean that out. It doesn't have "factory disks"., it has a recovery partition. How now brown cow? Ohhh you gotta be all tricky. The Max Blast should work. Just a copy might not. I just looked at the documentation for MaxBlast and it say's one Seagate drive must be present (hers are WD and Samsung). I don't know if it checks the disk tags or not, but if so, it wouldn't work... |
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Check the recovery partition and see if it offers the option to create recovery disks. All our IBM/Lenovo systems do. That's a good idea, but i just checked and it won't even let you access the partition. It just pops up a warning about messing with it and closes. |