Copy faster

ej159 · 8 Sep 2006 at 18:50

I'd like to copy all the files off of my old hard drive and stick them on to my new hard drive so the old one can be formatted without me losing data.

I know I could just copy and paste in explorer but it takes ages and certain files "can't be copied". There must be a freeware app that I can use that would speed this up.

Anyone help?

snowdog · 8 Sep 2006 at 18:55

dont know any freeware able to do this, but as for programs, i always use norton ghost, great for cloning whole hdd's.

bledd · 8 Sep 2006 at 19:03

if its JUST files (ie not windows files etc) just copy and paste and disable antivirus when doing it, will speed things up a lot..

you can't simply copy all from C to E (or whatever letters) if C is your current windows installed hard drive

you'll have to unplug your old one, install XP on new one, then set old one as a slave, new one as master, load up windows on the new one (new C drive) then copy files to it that you want...

you'll have to re-install all programs again, but doesn't take that long, insatll AV last, so it doesn't slow things down when installing and copying files

definalty install SP2 for xp (service pack 2) before plugging in the internet, then do windows update straight away

a good program for doing copying is unstoppable copier if it finds a file it can't copy, it'll just skip it and tell you after

ej159 · 8 Sep 2006 at 19:10

Ahh well I'm ahead of you there. I installed a second hard drive, stuck windows on it and booted from it. I now see two hard drives. My old disk has windows on, I might as well leave behind the windows directory (right?) and grab the rest. I was just gonna try and copy everything over, including system files, to a folder on my new hdd but windows wouldn't let me move some system files etc.

bledd · 8 Sep 2006 at 19:30

unless you've made folders on C yourself besides folders in my documents, the only things you'll probably want are in..

X:\Documents and Settings\YourOldUsername\Desktop, and same folder, My Documents, maybe your favourates too

ej159 · 8 Sep 2006 at 19:36

ooo, I made tons of folders. Premiere's got a video file, stuff lurking all over. I'm gonna sort it out some time! Thanks for the help will use Unstoppable Copier !