Help transferring old stuff to new hard drive

[qberry33]

Hi everyone! i ordered a new computer last nite. i would like to have everything from my old hard drive on my new hard drive and working correctly if possible. On my current hard drive i have windows vista, a game, and other files i would like to be on my new setup. How could i go about getting all of this on my new hard drive ? ive lost my game disc and dont feel like buying it again since i just dropped money on this computer lol. i still have my vista disc though. thanks in advance for the help.

 

[desigabri]

you can find a lot of freesoftware able to copy partitions, clone partition and/or drives. But first of all, you have to save your datas. I'm not writing about your game, but about the documents, emails, contacts, passwords, connection settings, pictures, videos. This is usually the first thing to do also if you didn't think about, because after any disaster people remember to have had something very important unsaved and it could be too much late...

After that you can think to clone or to copy your system to another drive. I'm not sure that it is possible at this time with vista but it should be possible.

 

[qberry33]

thanks for the response. i downloaded easeus to copy my current hard drive. by doing this will it copy everything from my current hard drive onto the new one and make everything work ? for instance would vista be working if i did this ? would a video game be working if i did this ? ive done alot of hardware stuff in the past but have never tried this before so im not to familiar with all of this. also if i were to do this wouldnt it just copy all of my current drivers onto the new hard drive and cause it not to work with the new computer due to the fact that the drivers would be wrong ?

 

[desigabri]

I think it will work also if I've heard and read about some microsoft tecniques to avoid the disk cloning (only for protect OS copyes). If you clone or Copy/Paste a partition You'll have the full datas you had before. You should find data copyes and raw copyes. The first is intelligent but could not to be sufficient to have your copy working, it depends about the system copy protection of the game. The RAw copy should be slower and help you whith system copy systems. After a raw copy you should (if you want) check the file system, checking for bad clasters because raw copy writes BAD where before were bad. For the same reason YOu could have problems copying over a bad disk because software should try for a long time to write datas over bad clusters and You should have a not working copy. But why don't try? Don't be wrong copy pasting the new to the old deleting your datas and if that software doen't work try another. Don't touch original datas.

 

[qberry33]

hmmm....thanks for the input. anyone else tried this before ? experience is knowledge so if anyone has tried to take vista from one HDD to another, post here and let me know how that went.

 

[LookinAround]

I think there's a "gotcha" in the process . Disk Cloning can be a great solution to moving your old hard drive image (files/programs/etc) to a hew hard drive being used in in the same computer with the same hardware!

Problem is that image includes the boot data and drivers and stuff all specific to your old computer. Is a good question if you can fix the image to boot and get new drivers to all work in the new one.

So... at minimum, i'd suggest you very first thing: clone the NEW hard drive before trying to change it so you can always recover back to the OS installation on the new computer

/* EDIT */
Or at least make sure you have the installation disks for the new computer so, if things go-to-heck-in-a-handbasket you can still get a working hard drive installation again

 

[desigabri]

You are right Lookingaround: I didn't read very well what he asked. I've realized now that he's changing the PC and about it this is a problem when the hardware isn't the same and when you used drivers that don't come from Microsoft. I misundestood this fact and I experienced it a lot of time. It is possible to fix it adding a step but you should have backup copy. This don't depend on the OS but it due to the drivers. So You could try doing these more steps:

1) After having cloned the old image onto the new hard-drive of the new PC, you have to put away the original old one and use the just cloned onto the OLD pc. At this point (Before I undestood this situation about you) System should boots (should and here are my dubs about Microsoft protection about the installation). If your system boots, then you have to uninstall all the drivers, starting from that which are not Microsoft and to be sure, at least also the Microsoft ones. If you need some reboots pay attention not to accept any request to install new found drivers. Your hardware-system-pannel should be clear of drivers. I think you can find some application that is able to do it in a click. If not You should do it driver after driver.

2) When you cleaned your system from older drivers (only drivers, not software) you have to switch this hard disk to the new PC. This usually works without producing blue screens and is very next to the first boot after Os Installation. If your Pc doesn't boot you should try repairing your OS. This works for old OS until XP. I never used Vista and tryed only the W7 so you could try it and share your skill to us.