Transferring windows to another hard drive

[chelsea25]

How can i transfer windows xp pro from one hard drive which it is on, 3g, to another hard drive 10g, and then get it to boot up on start up?

Is it possible at all? I have no disks, second hand computer.

Thanks in advance :)

[loopey]

no its not possible you have to install from the original cd unless you have some disc cloning software such as ghost.

[Buenchico]

Most disk cloning software is available on a free trial basis. If you're only going to be doing the job once then a limited trial period shouldn't be a problem. You could try True Image:
http://www.acronis.com/promo/ATI/true-image-005.html?ad= A12010304

Chris

[chelsea25]

Thanks for the replies, will try the free download

[wideboy]

You'll quite often find a full version of Acronis on a magazine cover disc eg.PC Pro this month - worth the fiver or so.

[vehelpfulguy]

From a hardware point of view there are some things to consider.

At the back of every hard drive is a small connector which says if it is a MASTER or SLAVE. You can usually only boot Windows from a MASTER.

Also, if you are going to connect two drives to the same IDE cable one has to be the MASTER (bootable) the other the SLAVE.

Finally, there are two IDE connections on your motherboard, IDE0 and IDE1. You have to have the bootable drive on IDE0, and the connection at the END of the cable, not the middle.