Will cloning a hard drive to another new one make me able to use both OS on each (like Xp)?

Question

I am looking to clone my windows xp hard drive to put on a bigger one (going from 80gb to 160gb), I have the software to do so, but was wondering once I clone can I run BOTH operating systems at the same time (say if I put the old HD in another desktop tower)? Or is it when I clone to my new HD, the old OS/HD will delete itself so I only have one hard drive with a workable OS (thus, the new one has Xp, but the old HD's OS is deleted)?

Also thinking about cloning my windows 7 to a bigger HD too, same questions from above? Will it work? Thanks!!!

Answer 1

Cloning will not delete your old OS and you would be able to use both hard disks. Usually when you move your new hard drive to a new machine it recognizes that the peripherals are new and asks for reactivation through Microsoft which is not a big deal. But remember that You actually break a law using one MS Windows license on two computers (depending on your piracy ethics :)0 )



I would recommend instead of keep using windows move to Linux OS that can be had for free and is way more stable and secure than the good old windows. I would recommend Ubuntu for beginners. Let me know if you have any questions about Ubuntu.



I hope this helps.

Answer 2

Well depends on whether the clone program deletes the data of the old drive or not, although usually those types of programs just copys the drive to a new one but doesn't delete the data so yes you can put the old drive in a new machine.



Two things that could go wrong with that are:

One, unless you have a volume license copy of the os after you put it a new machine windows will see different hardware and lock you out thinking you are trying to trick it into allowing it one two machines. Which will result in windows locking and forcing you to reactivate.



Two, windows will not have the chipset drivers for the new machine which may cause it to crash and lockup on you. Both XP and windows 7 will try to find and install the different drivers but don't always succed. in my experience windows 7 does the better job.

Answer 3

Cloning your harddrive backs it up, it does NOT erase or delete.

In theory, once you do that, you could swap the harddrives at will and both will boot. You could install different applications on them..



In theory, you *could* run the 2 different harddrives in 2 diff PCs. The PCs would have to be very similar or you're going to have all kinds of driver issues. But I'm pretty sure that's illegal.



Instead of replacing your harddrive, you should just use the new one along with the 80Gb boot drive as a data drive (unless you're having problems with the 80).

Answer 4

Well, there's two sides to this issue.



Will it work? Possibly, but only if the hardware in both systems is identical, other than hard drive. Same motherboard, same CPU, same video card, etc. Even then, the fact that the NIC changed might trigger Windows to force you to re-activate.



Should you do it? No, it's a huge no-no, would violate the terms of your license agreement with Microsoft.