Move XP to an already semi-filled hard drive

[Zathras]

Hi

My brother has a 20gb hard drive that acts as his program files/boot/system drive and a 120gb drive that is 80gb full of data/mp3s/etc. He wants to move his XP installation, program files etc to the 120gb drive, yet not have to delete the files already on it and we don't have sufficient space to copy them across to a third drive. Normally I'd ghost one drive to the other but this'd lose the files on the destination drive.

Any ideas guys? They're both NTFS drives. I'm thinking booting in safe mode, turning off swap-file, copying across all the files then doing a repair XP installation to sort out things like system/boot/MBR drive specifics. Reckon this'd work?

Cheers

Z

[Nomadd]

re: "Reckon this'd work?"

It might, but then I wouldn't trust it.

Let's face it, any messing around with this drive without having backed the data up elsewhere is potentially going to lose it for you. Hence I'd always recommend some form of backup *before* you start tinkering... Still, you seem to be saying that isn't an option.

In which case I would probably look at using Partition magic on the larger drive to use some of the free space on it to create a new partition; I'd then do a clean install of XP into that new partition. Your existing data can be preserved in another partition (i.e. the one you already have.) I've done this sort of thing many times when I've only had a single disk drive to work with, and it does work. You might have to tinker around with the drive letters/id's, but again partition magic will let you do that.

Nomadd

[trashcanmonkey]

Humm, i wouldn't recomend it!
moving XP is allways a dodgey business, does he want to move all of XP? I don't think you can actualy move XP, you would have to have a clean new installation on the fat HD, with a partition, like Nomadd says. you still have the install CD?

P.S That isn't a fox on your Avatar, its a Red Panda! ding ding!

[Zathras]

moving XP is allways a dodgey business, does he want to move all of XP?

Yup, cos he had a few programs and simulation software that would have taken several hours if not days to reinstall. Sorted it now, the repair reinstall after copying across using another computer worked fine!

P.S That isn't a fox on your Avatar, its a Red Panda! ding ding!

Also known as a firefox