New Hard Drive, but old data
 

I am in a bit of a problem because I bought a new hard drive (well got it for Christmas from girlfriend) and it's 500GB Western Digital (WD5000AAKS). I had/have two other hard drives (One SATA I 8MB Cache Maxtor 250GB and One IDE Seagate 250GB). I have all my data on my Maxtor drive (both XP Pro 64 and Vista Business 64) with all of my settings/programs/files/etc... now my issue is that I want to get all the same information to my NEW hard drive, but how to do it without getting everything all f**ked up? I tried a really cool program "R-Drive" and actually just about everything worked (The OS/Firefox/etc...) but Steam wouldn't work (What a surprise?!?! :-)) and some other weird crap. So how can I get all my programs/data/etc... to my new hard drive, preferably without having to reload both my OSes independently again :-\, but we can't always get what we want.

Slmclarengt

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

Make a steam backup disc and just re install steam afterwards (after R-Drive)?

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

That solves the steam, but he said he had other problems too. Slm, try defragging windows onthe original OS before copying over, then I would say install windows over again, but eh you want to avoid that sooo... mmm Google it, I will help as best as I can. :P

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

I just reinstalled XP so far so I'm just going to work like that because then while I'm swapping data, I will probably be reorganizing (organizing to begin with, it never was organized ;-)).

Next I need to install Vista and get the bootloader working. Any comments as to whether or not I should install Ubuntu 64 while I'm at it? I was thinking not because I wouldn't use it much on my desktop and I'm worried about GRUB messing everything up AGAIN.

Slmclarengt

P.S. Ubuntu works very nicely on my laptop.

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

Do this

When you install Ubuntu let it install grub.

Then when you load up with Grub, it will (hopefully) give you the option to get into your vista partitation cause Vista uses a different boot loader then XP

Look for a program called "EasyBCD". This will restore your vista bootloader, add your XP and ubuntu partitions (you will probably have to use "NeoGrub" for ubuntu loading) and bam you have a windows boot loader that will triple boot your system quite nicely (i use vista + ubuntu with the vista bootloader by the exact program im talking about).

I almost lost my partitions but was able to find them again using the vista recovery console cause I was so scared of grub screwing up my boot loader that when I installed ubuntu I told it to not install boot loader under advanced options. So I highly suggest you dont do that and just let grub load so you can get into your vista partition and use EasyBCD.

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

I actually have used all of those except I really don't want to go through 2 different bootloader screens (Grub --> Vista). I think I will stick with XP and Vista for now because I know that works then maybe in the future, Ubuntu + other two.

Thank you for the good advice, Grub and mine first experiences together ended miserably in ruining my partitions a FEW times :-\ so I'm hesitant to use it with my desktop. My laptop works well with it though.

Slmclarengt

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

See the thing with EasyBCD is that you will only see 1 boot loader screen.

It will load the windows boot loader, list all your things, and if you decide to go to linux it will then and only then show you another boot loader (for selecting which kernel you want to load into or even go into vista/xp from that bootloader).

But I understand the whole Grub mess, been there and done that, it sucks. Thank god grub didnt move to the PS3 boot loader. :)

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

I did get Vista 64 and XP 64 working concurrently. Heck right now I've got two versions of XP 64 running (Old version on Maxtor drive + New version on WDC drive) but I will probably format my old Maxtor then resave information to it but delete the Operating system so as to save myself time and headaches in bootloaders :-)

Also, I'm disappointed in my WD5000AAKS (model # for my WDC drive) because it claims to be a Windows Experience Index of '5.9' yet mine only checks out to be 5.7. I just checked Newegg to see if that's where I found the 5.9 info but it seems not, here's my hard drive on Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136073

Wow, I got it for $99.99 + Free Shipping and No tax, now it's a "special holdiay deal" at $114.99 + $6.14 shipping, hmm bad deal now in comparison :-)

Might as well get the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drive with 32MB cache if in the market for a hard drive.

@ Baller again - I use VistaBootPro actually usually and I like it, I can load the "legacy" bootloader (XP) or Longhorn (vista) and force the loader to install. I can manage OS entries, it's quite good too.

Slmclarengt

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

Ubuntu + Vmware(windows 2003) = Great OS :D

Re: New Hard Drive, but old data
 

VMWare is expensive though.