Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Imaging Windows XP to a larger drive

This is topic Imaging Windows XP to a larger drive in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-21-2003, 03:21 PM:

I am attempting to image my system drive with Windows XP Pro to a larger drive.

The image itself worked fine, with the data copied and the partition on the new drive expanded.

With the new drive in and the old drive completely out, Windows XP Pro boots up, but when it gets to the blue login screen, it just says "Windows XP" and doesn't list any users. I can't get past this screen.

WTF? Is there some security measure I need to know about working around? If I have to reinstall everything including all of the software on the new drive, I'll just stick with the old drive.

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 09-21-2003, 03:28 PM:

There is no security happening that I know of, I also use XP Pro. I've changed drives a number of times with no problems but it has happend to me when restoring an image.

You could try pressing ALT + TAB when the system seems to have frozen to see if there is a window behind that you can't see. It's possibly waiting for an input from you to allow windows to continue loading.... worked for me.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-21-2003, 03:33 PM:

Nice pic Adam... Is there a treasure buried below that big "W"? [evil]

>>> Phil

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 09-21-2003, 06:28 PM:

Just a question, once you have your new image of XP Pro on the new drive, do you need to re-activate it? Or do the old keys still apply?

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 09-21-2003, 06:57 PM:

I did this myself recently, only with Windows 2000 Professional. Fact of the matter is that Norton Ghost ISN'T quite all it's cracked up to be. It doesn't copy EVERYTHING exactly. I had to reset a lot of my shortcuts, reset my entire network setup, reinstall a few drivers, etc etc etc.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-21-2003, 08:08 PM:

I made the image with Drive Image 3.0 running under Win98se. The XP drive is formatted with FAT32 so that when I'm running under 98 I can still access the drive. I've imaged many a Windows 98 boot drive without event, but this is the first time I've imaged an XP boot drive.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-21-2003, 11:18 PM:

I may be wrong about this but wasn't XP only designed to run under NTFS file system. I remember when I got my computer with XP it would only let it set up in the NTFS file system mode.

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 09-21-2003, 11:22 PM:

You have the option to choose which disk format...at least in Pro. Dunno about the pussy home version...

>>>Phil

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-21-2003, 11:37 PM:

Darryl, I think you have the option of using NTFS or FAT32. I could be wrong.

Poop on those image copies. I just use software to copy the entire partition. Some Gurus tell me it will not work with XP because Bill Gates put the Kabosh on that so you can't transfer that drive to another machine. I know this holds true with W2K.

If you try, the program will say to itself, "Hmmmmmm...this is not the same enviroment, so the hell with you. I ain't gonna run."

That XP and 2000 Pro is so damned powerful that it can look at the CPU serial number even though it is disabled through the system bios If the serial number is different, it might not run.

However, I would think it would work if the drive was used in the same machine later unless there was some major cchanges in hardware. Some of you have said it does but I never tried it with XP since my machine has 2000 Pro in it. I don't intend to change.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-21-2003, 11:46 PM:

well, mine is the basic home edition and when I first started the new computer it converted the files to NTFS so I don't know if I had an option or not can't remember.

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-21-2003, 11:49 PM:

It was made to NTFS when it was installed. If you build a machine up and install it yourself, you will have that option to choose.

You do with W2K, so I would presume you would with XP. But here again, I could be in error.

Actually, I wonder if that is why you have a problem doing it. The two file system formats do not get along.

I never tried this - so I don't know if it will work. Use your third party software that came with the hard drive and set that new drive up to NTFS. Then try the imaging and see if it will work. But here again, I would just transfer the whole shebang instead of making an image copy.

Your old drive can be converted back to FAT32, but you will lose all your information on it because it is basically re-formatted to FAT32.

Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 09-21-2003, 11:57 PM:

Well, I remember talking to someone about that and he said that the Fat32 and the NTFS act in a different way. Basically he said that the NTFS stores the files in a volume but it is only one volume that is the drive its self. I guess what he was saying was the Fat32 can store files in more than one volume where as the NTFS can not. SOme of what he was saying bounced around bruising my brain so not sure if I explained that totally correct or not. [Smile]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-22-2003, 12:09 AM:

XP will run under either FAT32 or NTFS. So that's not the issue because the new drive is an identical copy of the old drive except it's bigger. That's what the imaging software does. It makes an identical copy of what's on the partition, boot sectors, operating system and all.

The old drive was/is running fine under FAT32. No other hardware has changed in the machine, just the hard drive.

Maybe tomorrow if I have a couple of hours to kill, I'll try imaging the drive again, but let it create a partition that's the same size as the original, to be later resized with Partition Magic.

But I get the feeling that I'll end up editing some registry files to make it think the new drive is what it was originally installed on. This is probably Microsoft's way of making sure you have all of your original installation disks for all of your software by making you reinstall everything. [fu]

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-22-2003, 12:39 AM:

Adam, I could be in total error, but if the old drive is NTFS and the new drive is FAT32, it might not be a successful copy.

If I am wrong, please tell me about the success of copying out of NTFS into FAT32. Like I say, I never tried it.....but your information I will definately stuff in my feeble memory bank. [Smile]

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-22-2003, 02:47 AM:

I'm not trying to copy from NTFS to FAT32. I'm trying to make an exact copy of a FAT32 drive.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-22-2003, 03:17 AM:

FAT32 can only go up to 30 gigs or something along those lines. If you want to use a larger drive (or partition), you have to go NTFS.

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 09-22-2003, 01:01 PM:

Sorry Brad but I have five 80 gig and one 60 gig fat 32 drives on my XP pro system.

Windows XP prevents you from formatting large drives but third party, and Dos, will. None of this is 'illegal' or a bodge just a windows being windows...

As for Ghost not being that good....! I use norton Ghost, boot from dos and it works perfectly time and time again. It CANNOT change your system in any way as it take an exact image of your entire drive or partition, whatever you select. It can then only restore the image in its entirity EXACTLY as it was before?

The same applies to Drive image, which I no longer use on a regular basis as I find Ghost is faster.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 09-22-2003, 01:19 PM:

Quoting from some tech note:

quote:
Windows XP and Windows 2000 limit partition creation to no larger than 32GB on FAT32. This limitation is by design: Microsoft wants you to use NTFS for large drives. If you use Windows Me or Windows 98 to format a drive, XP and Win2K can use a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB; however, these OSs can't create the partition.

Lots of good info & comparisons of file systems & OS restrictions here: MS Technote

Posted by Paul G. Thompson (Member # 655) on 09-22-2003, 01:22 PM:

Ken, I disagree. I have some 120 Gig Maxtor drives and the Maxi-blast software formatted the drives to NTFS in less than 10 seconds so I could install Windows 2000 Pro which is NTFS based platform.

Adam, how would it work if the old drive was converted to NTFS and then transferred to the new drive that has been formatted to NTFS by the software provided by the drive manufacturer?

Are you using the software that was provided with your new drive? It is better and faster than the old FDISK crap. I have had poor luck with FDISK of the huge drives.

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 09-22-2003, 02:24 PM:

Ken and David, thanks for the info on "phat" drives. [Big Grin]

Posted by Ken McFall (Member # 845) on 09-22-2003, 03:04 PM:

OK I frmat my drives normally under dos.... 80 gig is not a problem. As David say's it's a windows thing.

Misrosoft has always been heavy handed forcing people to toe the line. They decided to limit formatting drive size in XP.... in an attemp to force people to adopt NTFS.

Nothing wrong with NTFS, but I choose to use Fat32. All you have to do is format the drive using MsDos or something like Partition Magic. Once formatted XP will see and use the drive happily.

Microsoft has got itself into a bit of a tangle. They want, need, to make people move on and adopt newer technology..... but they also make a big deal of backwards compatibility.

I happen to like using Fat32 so I can get to the contents of a drive from dos if needed. I use dos to make images of my drives and to restore the images. I use dos to delete stubborn files when windows decides they cannot be deleted etc etc.

I use dos for some utilities, Dolby DRAS and CP500 software being two examples. None of this would be possible if I did as I was told and used NTFS!

So if you have a drive bigger than 32gig, use FDisk and partrition and format it in dos. Windows XP will see all of the drive and use it with no problem.

Posted by Adam Martin (Member # 641) on 09-22-2003, 06:50 PM:

I use FAT32 simply because I need to boot to Win98se and access the files. Otherwise, I'd use NTFS.

I used FDISK to set up the drive and booted to Win98se and formatted it to the full 30gig partition. (I did the same for the 80gig drive.)

The drive is working properly. It's XP that I'm having the problem with. It boots up fine, but I'm not able to get a logon screen.

I've tried blanking the passwords and resetting the system key to no avail.

Overnight I'll leave it re-imaging the drive again, but this time leaving the partition size the same.