New HDD - system migration issue

Have you tried setting the drive letters inside windows? Assuming you have admin rights, go to control panel, admin tools, computer management. Then, click on disk management under storage. Change the drives to the letters you want ... H: to C: and the present C: to whatever you choose.
Then try rebooting and see what happenes. Hope this helps.

-Dave

Ive only used Partition Magic for partitions not data transfer. I am more used to using Norton Ghost. Do you have access to this software? Ghost will take a bit by bit copy of your old drive and transfer it to the new one. I would format and resize the new drive the way you want it then ghost it over from the old.

If Part. Magic is using a similar process(and you can't test with Ghost) then try using Disk manager in Windows XP. You should be able to change drive assignments there. Youcan get to the spot by right clicking on My Computer and choosing manage. Under storage there will be an option/folder disk management(or something rather close to this).

I never ran across this issue using ghost as it just copies the info bitby bit. Drive letter assignment in theory should be handled when the OS sees that its the first drive or second or whatever. I have to say make sure you master/slave jumpers are set right right. Make sure the new drive is set to be Master and theold one to slave.

Hope this gets you in the right direction.

Jason

When you formatted the new drive using partition magic did you make the drive "Active"? If the drive isn't "Active" you won't be able to boot from it.

note: some 3rd party partitioning software will format drives but do not make them active [like FDISK does] automatically. [Partition Commander is like that]. Check to make sure that your partition on the new drive is "Active". If not, doing so might solve your sticky drive letter and boot problem.

What happens when you boot with just the New Drive connected?

If the system will boot with just the new drive, than change the drive letters from there.
Then, if needed, re-install the old drive.
I would go so far as to install it as the slave on the secondary IDE channel.

Chas

The new drive is set to be a primary, unhidden, active partition.

It is now the only drive on the cable and set to be master. The system recognises it as such (BIOS bootup screen) and attempts to boot from it.

Partition magic is also copying the drive bit by bit.

This is why i think it is not working. The old drive an IBM is assigned as C:. The new drive is assigned as D:

The bit by bit copy leaves these drive letter assignments on the new drive. Windows XP does not just randomly assign drive letters, for existing drives it remembers their serial numbers and keeps the original letters until they are changed.

So when it tries to boot it sees d: drive and no C: drive where the files should be (if the old drive is attached it works)

Changing the drive letters in windows solved my problem

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