Good hard drive replacement?

Try Start->Run-> compmgmt.msc

Once Computer Management opens
Click on Disk Management

You should see your new drive, where you can right click on it and format it

Ok, I am stuck
I have managed to successfully install my new hard-drive, but when I switch it on, it won't log me on. It comes up with a logon box instead of the full screen one, and has a login text area and a password area. I have checked that it recognises the hard-drive. Also, I copied my entire computer over to the hard-drive, so i don't understand why it won't just start up...
I put in my password and then it says loading settings, and then qucikly followed by logging off!
Hope you can help,
Habylab

Please help!

Oh come on guys!

You will need to run a Repair on your Xp Home OS

Microsoft's Windows XP Home Repair Install step by step
http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstall.com/installxpcdrepair/part3.htm

By the way, I was offline for a few days, and did not see your reply a day ago
Your latest two further replies came through ok though :rolleyes:

Why? It is the exact same thing as my current hard-drive, which runs fine? I haven't tried safe mode, maybe that would work....

Nope

Sorry I haven't got the reference links (that do exist)
Just take it as gospel, that if the image doesn't work, do a repair
Well you wanted me to answer quickly

Its Norton Ghost! It suck! I switched to Acronis, and it worked first time, even though it took twice as long. It did it sector by sector which is slower, but less likely to fail. It didn't resize my partition like it said, but I used something for that.

Does it normally take a few start-up to notice the speed increase? I mean i have upgraded the cache from 8mb to 32mb, so...

I use Acronis True Image v11 (i'll guess you've purchased the most recent release? Acronis True Image 2009?)

You're right. Sector-by-sector disk imaging is much slower then simply running a simple full backup (without sector-by-sector copy)

Note the non-sector-by-sector method:
- Also allows you to recover files, folders or a disk image
- Is quicker (and smaller) the doing sector-by-sector in that it only backs up USED (vs. un-used) disk space
- Is quciker as can optionally also omit things like your page file which typically isn't needed during a backup

HOWEVER, all that said.... One should ONLY do non-sector-by-sector image/backups when there's no question about disk file and file system integrity. If one wants to attempt any type of disk repair on a disk image they MUST do sector-by-sector copy or risk loosing data they will need later for the repair.

/* EDIT */
just an added note... note that as all the support here is provided by volunteers.. is often the case that fewer people are online/reviewing the help posts over the weekends.... So may take a bit longer for help posts to get a reply when posting over the weekends (and especially if particular problems require particular expertise which only further reduces the number of people who could reply with answers)

In any case, glad to see kimsland back from holiday (welcome back!) and your problem seems to be getting addressed