Moving a Windows Install across hard drives?
 

I've done this with Linux and *BSD more times than I can count, but never attempted it on Windows:

I've currently got a Windows install (XP Pro x64) on my 160GB HD. I'd like to move that partition onto my 250GB SATA drive. Is there any sort of decent guide for this? I'm thinking:

(1) Move (Copy?) the Partition over to the new drive
(2) Install the MBR on the new drive (how?)
(3) Change BIOS to have the SATA be the primary boot drive

Anything I'm missing here? Anyone tried this before?

I SUPPOSE I could reformat but (A) I don't want to and (B) I don't know where the heck I'd find a floppy drive to install to SATA anyhow

I might be wrong, but isn't this what Ghost is for?

Never used Ghost. I'll have to look into it.

I've seen many larger hard drives these days come with free tools on included discs which duplicate the entire contents of your source hard drive onto a target drive, keeping the relative sizes of the partitions. You will then be able to plug that drive in as master, and it will be treated exactly the same way as the source.
I know that Western Digital and Maxtor, and possibly Seagate, include these tools. If you want, I can see if I can upload the program to sendspace or something later today.

I would like this program too, because I'm getting my ex-girlfriend a hard drive for Christmas and want to simplify the process as much as possible.

Does it only work for that brand's manufacturer though?

I'm not really sure. It would make sense that they would do that, but my initial impression is that it isn't limited to only their hardware.

Oh, I must mention that when I migrated once, I ended up having some strange trouble with the recycling bin; specifically that it was perpetually empty. This only happened once though.

I get working on uploading it soon then.

I would have to second Symantec Ghost for doing this. I have used it to successfully transfer my Windows 2000 install (and all partitions on the drive) from an aging 40gb drive over to a 250gb drive. I did this many to save time with reloading software and licenses for music. Just a word of warning though, you can't save the images on dynamic discs (formatted with NTFS), so I would connect both drives at the same time and just directly clone one drive to the other to avoid problems with lack of disk space. It will even give you the option of resizing each partition, so you don't have to worry about using Partition Magic to do this.