Installing a new Hard Drive on Windows XP

[crockett09]

I just got a new IBM computer. It came loaded with Windows XP Home Edition, no discs whatsoever. The system also came with a 40GB hard drive. I am trying to install a brand new Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB ATA/133 Hard Drive into the new computer.

What I have done so far:

I started the new computer and followed all the steps. It seems to boot fine and I've clicked around but have not changed one single thing and have installed no software. The automated start-up forced me to create users so I created four new users. I shut down the computer and began trying to install the bigger hard drive.

I installed the Maxtor 80GB Hard Drive (configured as a slave) and booted the computer. It saw it and assigned to the E:\drive. It then rebooted again with Symantec Ghost Boot Disk Version 7.5 in the floppy drive and managed to successfully image the orginal 40GB to the slave 80GB hard drive.

I then shut down. I made the 80GB hard drive the master drive and then made the 40GB hard drive the slave drive. I booted and again I thought everything was fine until I tried to get in to User Accounts and got an error message. So I removed the 80GB hard drive and put everything back to normal and discovered that now I can now indeed get into User Accounts.

So evidently the image is not an EXACT image. It gave me some warnings that the new drive was not digitally signed on the first boot up and I just ignored them.

I tried putting in JUST the 80GB Hard Drive configured both to Cable Select and Master and in both cases it locks up with just a blue screen that says Windows XP. Using the orginal drive this is the point where you are given a choice as to what User wants access the computer.

So what is the secret. How do you install a new hard drive in the computer. I thought I would just put the new hard drive in, install windows XP and be done......But of course they don't ship you a copy of Windows XP so...I'm stuck.

[sechs]

The problem is that it *is* an exact image of the original disk.

Windows assigns unique serial numbers to each drive. When you make an exact image of a disk, you end up with two disks with the same serial number. At boot, Windows will figure this out and assign one of the disks a new serial number.

This is not a problem unless the disk is a boot disk. Since Windows uses the serial number as a handle to assign drive letters, it is possible that the disk that you *do not* wish to boot from is being used to start Windows, as it is the one that retained the original serial number. This can make all kinds of things go haywire. If everything works correctly after restoring the original configuration, count yourself lucky.

What you should do is put the two drives in; start up Ghost and image the original to the new disk, making sure to select the "image all" option; then remove the original disk and setup the new disk for boot; and, finally, boot from the new disk. This should put you back where you were -- but with the new drive in the place of the old one. After checking that the image has gone correctly, you should repartition the old disk outside of Windows. Normally, I suggest using the recovery console to do this, but since you don't have a Windows CD, that's a bit difficult.