Transferring Programs, Games And Data From one hard drive to another...

[Cain 0]

Hey, guys. Well, I have read various articles here and elsewhere about how equally distributing the contents of your computer to multiple hard drives can enhance its performance. As I was installing a new game to my computer, I figured that it might be a good to start transferring my data. My first hard drive (C: Drive) is 229 GB with 171 GB of free space on it. My second hard drive (D: Drive) is 465 GB - all of it is free. I was thinking that perhaps it would be best to put all of my games on one hard drive and my other programs on the second. Also, I thought it'd be better to put all of my games on the smaller drive, because I can only run one at a time anyways while I should put the rest of my programs on the larger one so that I can run multiple programs more efficiently. I was just curious as to your opinions as to how this will lay out, if you think it's the best distribution of my programs or not.

 

My second order of business is how to transfer all of my programs and games safely to the other hard drive. Is there a special program that can do this for me? Or is there a manual method? If anyone knows please tell me. Thank you for all your help.

[Saint_Michael 3]

it sounds likea good idea i would have but the games on a bigger hard drive due to the fact they take up more resources to play. but i beleive all you have to do is have one window open to your second hard drive and then just move the files that way. I couldn't find any programs that would do it quicker then reinstalling them and then just move the files that have the save game data in it and move it into its rightful folder on the second one.

[Cain 0]

Just when you responded I found this:

Transfer Data Between Hard Driveswritten by Michelle VonWald on Thursday, December 26, 2002
You have many options for transferring your hard drive's data from one computer to another.

Have you ever purchased a new computer and wondered how you were going to transfer all the files from the old hard drive to the new one? Come join us on today's episode of "Call for Help" as we go over a few different techniques for transferring all those files to the new drive.

Moving your data is not the big deal. It's the applications you have to worry about. Windows uses a Registry system to keep track of all the programs on your system. If you were to try and copy a program over to a new hard drive, some of the key registry settings wouldn't make it. For this reason, you're better off reinstalling all the programs on the new drive

Remember, the key is to move only settings and data, and not programs. There are several ways to transfer data from one hard drive to another.

Beginner

Create a backup of all of your data and restore it on the new hard drive. By data, we mean the contents of the My Document folder, any network settings, bookmarks, saved games, and anything else you can't live without. You can even move the contents of the cookies file if you want. Copy the data from the backup into the appropriate folder on the new hard drive. Although this approach is the easiest, it takes the longest.

Read this article on backing up your hard drive.

Intermediate

A relocator program merges data from your old hard drive onto the new hard drive. It leaves the new operating system intact but moves your network settings, programs, and other data. Even though I said not to move programs over to the new drive, a relocator will move all the necessary registry keys for you. If you find that the programs don't operate as intended after transferring them over, just install a fresh copy on the new drive. We recommend Alohabob's PC Relocator.

Alohabob PC Relocator ($29.95) helps you transfer all your data and programs without overwriting your operating system. Just connect the PCs with the provided cable and launch Alohabob's software to transfer the data. If your PCs are already on a network, you won't need to connect anything.

If you have Windows XP configured on a new computer or hard drive, then you don't need to buy anything. XP comes with the Files and Settings Transfer program, which migrates data from your old PC or hard drive. However, you won't be able to move programs with this program.

Advanced

Connect the two computers using a direct cable connection (DCC). You can use either a special parallel cable -- called a null modem cable -- or a special USB cable. Read this article for detailed instructions on how to configure two PCs via DCC.

Parallel Technologies can help you find direct connection cables.

Geek

The most advanced method is to remove the hard drive from the old computer and install it in the new computer. We recommend this approach only for geeky computer users. Don't try this if you're a newbie.

Read this story for a detailed explanation on how to add a second hard drive to your computer. Because your old hard drive should already be partitioned and formatted, you can skip the steps detailing how to do this for a new hard drive.

All you need to focus on is adjusting the jumper settings for both drives. Then you attach the IDE ribbon and you should be ready to transfer files and settings.

Alohabob PC Relocator

Article URL: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I'm lucky I found this article for a couple reasons. The first is that the article says that simply copy and pasting from one hard drive to the other may not be sufficient, because of the data in the registries that may not transfer fully. The second reason why I'm lucky is because I actually have the program that they talk about in the article, Alohabob PC Relocator. I think it's intended to transfer information from computer to computer, but my guess is that it can also go from hard drive to hard drive. I'm going to play around and see what happens. Thank you for your quick response, Michael. I'll tell you how things turn out.

[pawitp 0]

Your best bet is to reinstall them so that you won't have to deal with messy registry entries later. But to actually speeds stuff up you should actually have RAID drive. 2 drives with the same capatability configured to use sw/hw raid. It could be raid level 0 for speedy writes or raid level 1 for speedy reads. Separating games and software don't really have any effect because you don't run both at the same time anyway!

[fusionx 0]

First thing to really actually do is put your games on the FASTER drive, as this makes your games better and more enjoyable. So if your drives is something like 5400 rpm or 4800rpm (I don't know the exact) but you should or must put your games on the 5400 rpm etc. So depending on drive spead thats where i would put your games.With my drive 5400 it was good but when i got a better one (7600rpm) it was a big noticeable change of performance, the computer is only fast as it's weakest member !Then transfering you can just copy paste, then use Windocter to fix all the links etc. or some sort of familiar program. This one guy had an external and the drive letter changed so all his programs got messed so he used the program (win docter) and it fixed it all.