cloning HDD with XP

[aft3rgl0w]

hey all, i have 2 of the sam make of HDD, one is 9.5 GB the other 20, i installed XP on the 9.5 GB drive but it's quickly filled up, and i don't want to have to go through another week of configuring my system the way i like it... is it possible to copy the contents of the 9.5 GB drive to the 20 GB drive and have it function the same?  i've heard ghosting NTFS XP drives can cause issues... any throughts?

[Creodus]

I have used Ghost to clone a new install of XP Pro (NTFS) from one partition to create a second active partition on the same HDD within a laptop.  Everything has copied across fine and I can boot to either partition from start up. No running issues with any program at all so far except one...

When opening [color=\"blue\"][Control Panel][/color] on the cloned system and selecting [color=\"blue\"][User Accounts][/color] I receive a Microsoft R HTML Application Error (mshta.exe and msthml.dll) and can go no further.  This means no way of accessing the nice natty features of the User Accounts wizard, easy password changes, welcome screen disable etc.

I cannot fathom the reason for this one problem and so far found no cure and no forum items, Microsoft fixes (even the Win2k suggestions for a similar problem with [color=\"blue\"][Add/Remove Programs][/color] doesn't work) or KB answers relating to it.

So apart from this issue I see no reason not to try Ghost, unless this area of the OS is important to you (you can make certain changes through Management Console anyway) - there is also Acronis True Image 7.0 which looks good and claims to be able to make a true clone... might be worth a try.  I will be giving this program a go as whilst Ghost is good, I am getting increasingly fed up with all the problems I see with PCs that run Symantec AV and Firewall products -  http://images.thetechguide.com/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif\' class=\'bbc_emoticon\' alt=\'\' />

Meantime if anyone can help with this User Account issue, be interested to hear of a fix pls...

[mtrivs]

I tried copying a drive with xp pre-installed on it to a formated drive and had no luck.  I couldnt boot from the hard drive.

[Creodus]

if you haven't tried this already, when you formatted the drive was it made as an "active" partition - an OS won't boot from a logical drive?

[Me]

Goto "www.westerndigital.com" and download Data Life Guard.  It is designed for Western Digital drives, but will work with other makes and models.

The program will do the basic transfer of files from one HD to another so you end up with a clones drive (two fo the same).