Installing a new, larger drive

Posted on April 30, 2010 by kentdyer

NOTE: The audience of this article should be technical enough to understand the information discussed below.  I used Windows XP for this process, but you should be able to use Vista/7 for the same.

  1. DISCLAIMER: There is no guarantee the below process will work for you and I have used this several times with success
  2. POTENTIAL PITFALL #1: The system HAL may not be able to address or handle the larger drive and/or hardware changes
  3. POTENTIAL PITFALL #2: You may also have to re-install your operating system (but, not deleting your old software) on the new drive to fix any existing issuses that get tranferred over – YMMV
  4. POTENTIAL PITFALL #3: The original intent of this article is to take a copy of an image from an old drive to a new drive and run the new drive under the same, original chassis.  If you copy the image from one chassis to another, you maybe able to run it, but then again you are on your own as the HAL will be different.
  5. You have to be patient and stick with it!!
  6. You have been warned! :)
Preparations:
  1. Be sure that you can boot your system from the CD-ROM drive
  2. Be sure you have the correct, bootable Windows CD (I used XP with an appropriate edition (Home, Media Center, or Professional), Service Pack (SP1, SP2, or SP3 – be sure it is the same Service Pack that is installed on the system), Internet Explorer (6, 7, or 8))
  3. Download GParted (version 0.5.2-1 or newer with Debian LINUX), they have fixed/updated the copy process for NTFS partitions http://gparted.sourceforge.net
  4. Use a program like Imgburn to burn the GParted ISO to a new blank CD http://www.imgburn.com
  5. Download and/or obtain any tools, utilities, and/or updates from the hard drive manufacturer as they maybe needed for the new drive installation.  And/or you need to be sure you have the install disks, CDs, etc. that may have come with both the new/old drives
  6. Follow manufacturer’s instructions and reference materials for correct technical data:  This can be, but not limited to: jumper settings, software drivers, firmware, etc. for the drives (old/new)
Process Steps:
On a high-level, you will be taking a copy of your old hard drive and copying it to your new drive.  Once copied, then you will need to disconnect the old drive and boot off of the newly created volume.  I have also tried to use the DOS Command XCOPY with various switches to copy the volume from one drive to another, but when put into practice I had mixed results.  If the process does not work, you can put your old drive back in as a Master position/jumper(s) and you can use the old drive.  With a SATA connector (depending on your PC manufacturer) can be as a simple as a  move from one connector slot to another on the motherboard for the Master/Slave configuration.  It may also be helpful to apply BIOS Updates as well.
  1. BACKUP FIRST: Backup your system to insure that you have your Desktop, Favorites, Documents, Outlook files, registry, etc to an offline store like a network drive.  This will help insure that if there is a problem you can get to your old data
  2. Configure and plug the new drive in a secondary (or slave) location into the intended system
  3. Boot using the GParted CD
    1. From the button bar, locate the: //dev/sda and switch it to: //dev/sdb – this is an example, yours maybe different
    2. Create a new NTFS Partition(s).  Note: If you have used a tool like MaxBlast or another utility, you maybe able to skip this step
    3. From the button bar, locate the: //dev/sdb and switch it back to: //dev/sda – this is an example, yours maybe different
    4. Locate the original drive and image and select it should be something like: //dev/sda1
    5. Locate and press the copy button from the toolbar in GParted
    6. From the button bar, locate the: //dev/sda and switch it to: //dev/sdb – this is an example, yours maybe different
    7. Select the new image location
    8. From the button bar, locate and press the paste button.  NOTE: If the old drive is larger than the new drive, you may have to re-size the old drive using GParted to fit on the new drive – don’t laugh this happened to me
      NOTE: The copy process can take a while (60-90 minutes plus), so you have to be patient and is dependent on processor, bus speed, drive size, and so on..  I had one drive that took me most of a weekend to complete it’s copy, but was with an older version of GParted
    9. Once the copy has completed, right-click on the image and choose boot flags: verify it has a checkmark in boot
    10. Shutdown and eject the GParted CD
  4. Remove the old drive out of the machine or undo the cable temporarily
  5. Add the new drive cable into the primary (or Master location and/or jumpers)
  6. Start up your computer with your Operating System Boot CD
    1. Once it boots up, have the install check and correct the new drive for errors.  Once complete, it will say maintenance has completed and will need to restart
    2. Eject the Operating System Boot CD
  7. After the computer restarts and if all goes correctly, you should be able to start and login to Windows.  NOTE: If the computer is in a Domain Environment, you may have to reset the Computer Account in Active Directory.
  8. Let it sit on the desktop for a while (might take a few minutes), it should detect the new drive an prompt for another restart
  9. Once it restarts and you log back in to windows, you may want to install and tools or utilities from the manufacturer of the drive
    NOTE:     It is very important that you check and correct any errors on the drive before the drive is put to use
Enjoy your new drive!

Filed under: Systems Management | 1 Comment »

Command Line Tricks

Posted on April 28, 2010 by kentdyer

Some command-prompt tricks

In Bryce’s recent postings on http://www.technibble.com/scripting-your-own-computer-repair-tools-pt4/ he has provided some great information about batch scripting.

In the process, I blurted out that you can chain DOS commands together, but had to recant my statements..

There are several ways to do this, however:

First one is a re-direct:
> Re-direct the screen output to a file like the example:
DIR C: > somefile.txt

What is this doing?  This is taking what is being shown on the screen and re-directing the output to a file called: somefile.txt

Caveat: With one “>” this or any other command re-directed to this file will be over-written each and every time.  If you want to append (add to) the end of the file, just simply double it up:
“>>” like the example:
DIR C: >> somefile.txt

Next is a pipe “|” and is used for things like:
DIR C:\windows | more

Yawn, yeah I know that I can also do:
DIR /p C:\windows

and get the same results..

However, you can pass through things like (Be very careful here, please!!):
ECHO y|DEL C:\somedir\*.txt

So, what this does is to take the y (or yes response) and “pipe” it through the del command.

There are some other things that are a bit obscure that can be done too.  Your mileage may vary..

One command to do two actions..  Let’s see if we can do a Dir on two folders..
DIR C:\windows;”C:\program files”

Note: This is all one command-line command.  Pretty cool huh?  This does a Dir on both the C:\Windows and the C:\Program Files  in one command!!

Two commands to do at a one time..  Hmmm..
Now, let’s try to do two commands in one command from the command-line:
TYPE C:\boot.ini&DIR c:

Note: This is all one command.  This does Type the contents of the boot.ini file and then a Dir on C:\ drive in one command!!  It is important to note that if you do a DIR with an /s, you will traverse (go through all of the directories) in the C:\ drive and you will get a ton of results.

Caveat: If you use this in a batch file, you will need to do the following:
TYPE C:\boot.ini&&DIR C:

Note: the double “&&” to chain these two commands together in a batch file.

Note #2: You cannot do the following with XCOPY, for example..

XCOPY C:\Windows;”C:\Program Files” D:\SomeFolder

Filed under: Scripting | Tagged: | Comments Off

New Website Now Live (beta)

Posted on February 22, 2010 by itripoli

Today we started sharing our new site as it is now a pretty functional resource. Aside from looking better, you no longer need a support account to activate offline. In fact you no longer need a separate support account at all. For checking licensing you can do so with your license information.

We’ll be keeping the old site around even after the new site is fully functional as we realize there is some valuable information still there. That said, we have opted to move to a knowledge base system and have been porting all the most common questions and answers over to the new system for the last couple of months. So while, the forum may arguably be a more valuable resource today we will be working to reverse this as we beef up our new support center. We also think many will appreciate our new ticket system for tracking feedback and requests.

Please check it out and let us know what you think. What remains to be done? We still have some graphics to update and plan to migrate our script library to the new layout as well. Also items like online documentation and wizards have not yet been moved over, so if you don’t find what you are looking for at the new site, remember it is “under construction” and kindly refer to our “legacy” website ;)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Comments Off

Script Tab Properties

Posted on January 28, 2010 by itripoli

Did you know that you can right click on a tab and choose “Script Properties” to see information and options for that script? Give it a try! When you right click on a tab and choose “Script Properties” in ASE you’ll see:

  • Full script path and filename
  • The type of document (as ASE identifies it)
  • Word and line count data
  • An option to pop up a dialog to collect a change log entry when the script is closed
  • An option to automatically create a time-stamped backup when the script is closed

Change log entries are inserted into a dynamically updated region called “Changelog” (which will initially be created at the very top of the script). There are some further settings to control change log entries in ASE options listed under “Formatting > Change log” where you may specify the format of the change log entries including control over what categories are offered and optional use of several variables for entering dynamic data within the entry (dates, domain, user, etc.). Finally there is also the ability to globally pop up change log entries on all scripts, with an additional option to help prevent it from being dismissed (requiring the user enter some kind of detail and not just hit OK or Cancel).

Filed under: Features | Tagged: , | Comments Off

ASE Blog Launch

Posted on January 25, 2010 by itripoli

Not really a launch yet, because it is unannounced, but if you’ve found this, welcome to the new Admin Script Editor blog. Here we will share news and tips about the Admin Script Editor . Soon we will be launching a new website, new support portal and ticket system, oh and a little thing we are calling ASE 4.0.

Filed under: News | Tagged: | Comments Off

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