six-h Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 Hi Guys, Wonder if anyone can educate me! I have an old laptop that's running XP Pro on a 3.2GB drive with 192MB of RAM and there is only 154MB of space left! Seems my first priority is to replace the drive! I have a 20GB spare one in a caddy that still has a working copy of XP Home on it from a previous laptop. I presume this will need wiping and formatting ready to receive a clone of XP Pro from the lappy. I have Acronis TI 8 installed and ready to create it, but nothing to format the receiving 20GB Disk. This is where I get totally lost!!! Came across this Bootable rescue CD:- http://www.hirensbootcd.net/cd-contents/136-hbcd-106.html Most of the stuff on it would be dangerous in my hands...but it does have a copy of Acronis Disk Director, to partition my receiving disk. I assume that the link will take me to an ISO download which I can turn into a bootable CD using Imgburn. If that's right, apart from using it as a rescue boot CD in dire circumstances, can I also just use it like any other software CD, and slap it in the tray and select to run individual bits of software as per normal??
LIGHTNING UK! Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 Why don't you just let the windows installer format the disk? That aside... Hiren's Boot CDs are already bootable - funnily enough (the clue is in the name). All you do is write it as you would do any other image file - in Write mode.
six-h Posted October 5, 2010 Author Posted October 5, 2010 Why don't you just let the windows installer format the disk? Presume you're refering to the 20GB "upgrade" disk: This would be in an external caddy waiting to receive the clone of the lappy's OS via a USB connection. Hiren's Boot CDs are already bootable - funnily enough (the clue is in the name). OK, So I ask again, can I slap this "bootable CD" in my player while the system is running and tickety boo and use any one of the programmes as if it were not a bootable CD? All you do is write it as you would do any other image file - in Write mode. So I don't need to use Imgburn, just burn it like a music CD with plain old vallila Nero?
LIGHTNING UK! Posted October 5, 2010 Posted October 5, 2010 ok, clearly I misread/got confused by your initial post. (I apologise, the topic title must have thrown me) If you have a working OS that you can boot into, you can partition and format the disc using Windows. (You don't need special tools for it) Right click 'My Computer' -> 'Manage' -> 'Disk Management'. In there you can delete the partition on the 20GB drive, make a new one, format the disk and do whatever else you fancy doing to it. Most of the useful tools on Hiren's CD are meant to be run in DOS, especially the lower level stuff. It is primarily a 'boot cd'. Also, if you're going to 'clone' the 3.2GB drive, Acronis will take care of partitioning etc. You shouldn't have to format or prepare the 20GB drive at all. So I don't need to use Imgburn, just burn it like a music CD with plain old vallila Nero? Why would you even ask such a question on the ImgBurn support forum? If you've got something against using it, why are you here?
six-h Posted October 6, 2010 Author Posted October 6, 2010 ok, clearly I misread/got confused by your initial post. (I apologise, the topic title must have thrown me) No apology needed, I'm just grateful for the help! If you have a working OS that you can boot into, you can partition and format the disc using Windows. (You don't need special tools for it) Right click 'My Computer' -> 'Manage' -> 'Disk Management'. In there you can delete the partition on the 20GB drive, make a new one, format the disk and do whatever else you fancy doing to it. This is where I get confused, I thought that this could only be done to the installed disk, the 3.2GB one....not the 20GB one that's attached by usb...(USB 1.1 at that! lol) Most of the useful tools on Hiren's CD are meant to be run in DOS, especially the lower level stuff. It is primarily a 'boot cd'. They are the ones that I recon would be dangerous in my hands! Also, if you're going to 'clone' the 3.2GB drive, Acronis will take care of partitioning etc. You shouldn't have to format or prepare the 20GB drive at all. Music to my ears! So I don't need to use Imgburn, just burn it like a music CD with plain old vallila Nero? Why would you even ask such a question on the ImgBurn support forum? If you've got something against using it, why are you here? Quite the reverse, I've only had cause to use Imgburn a couple of times, and even in my incompetent hands it has worked 100%, so I'm a fan! Just got the wrong end of the stick from your earlier post. Sorry if my problem is a bit off your usual track, but I thought that you were the people most able to give me reliable advice on "bootable media", for which I'm grateful!
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