upgrading a hard drive WITHOUT a working CD to reinstall the OS

[SlickRCBD]

I just aquired a 60gb drive that I'd like to use to replace the C drive
in a win98 system. I no longer have a working OEM CD, and a generic
win98 CD would not have the proper drivers. I'm thinking of keeping the
dying 20gb drive as a backup.

Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to
the primary partition on the new drive?

If I then hook up the new drive as the C drive, would I expect things to
work perfectly?

I know, the obvious answer is to hook things up with the new drive as a
slave, but I have all four IDE channels tied up, so in order to hook it
up I have to take something out. I'm not even sure if I still have the
old panels for the bays, and I'd lose the functionality of that device.

[Steven Saunderson]

Post by SlickRCBD
Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to
the primary partition on the new drive?

It should be possible. I've copied everything except the swapfile from
an active system drive to a backup. There might be a problem copying
files such as SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT depending on the copy program you
use. XCOPY might do the job. I used a homemade copy program with a
very relaxed input file open which is the only way I could access some
files. There is also a program called XXCOPY (freeware) which might
help here.

[philo]

Post by Steven Saunderson

Post by SlickRCBD
Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to
the primary partition on the new drive?

It should be possible. I've copied everything except the swapfile from
an active system drive to a backup. There might be a problem copying
files such as SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT depending on the copy program you
use. XCOPY might do the job. I used a homemade copy program with a
very relaxed input file open which is the only way I could access some
files. There is also a program called XXCOPY (freeware) which might
help here.
--
Steven

XXCOPY should do the trick


xxcopy /clone would be the switch to use

Also, Acronis True Image is an excellent disk cloning utility

though it's not free ware, they do have a free trial available



BTW: Though it is generally OK to use...(though it may not always work
perfectly)

xcopy that's already included with windows will generally do the job

If must be used from a command promopt window (rather than pure dos)

xcopy will also invoke xcopy32 where needed


A typical usage would be xcopy /s/c/h/r/e/k

[SlickRCBD]

Post by philo

Post by Steven Saunderson

Post by SlickRCBD
Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to
the primary partition on the new drive?

It should be possible. I've copied everything except the swapfile from
an active system drive to a backup. There might be a problem copying
files such as SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT depending on the copy program you
use. XCOPY might do the job. I used a homemade copy program with a
very relaxed input file open which is the only way I could access some
files. There is also a program called XXCOPY (freeware) which might
help here.
--
Steven

XXCOPY should do the trick
xxcopy /clone would be the switch to use
Also, Acronis True Image is an excellent disk cloning utility
though it's not free ware, they do have a free trial available
BTW: Though it is generally OK to use...(though it may not always work
perfectly)
xcopy that's already included with windows will generally do the job
If must be used from a command promopt window (rather than pure dos)
xcopy will also invoke xcopy32 where needed
A typical usage would be xcopy /s/c/h/r/e/k

I remember doing this with MS-DOS, but I wasn't sure if I could do it
with Windows 9X. I know you can't do it with XP because of the stupid
"activation code" that checks your hardware configuration and disables
windows if you change things enough. That's part of the reason why I
asked about making an identical partition and using diskcopy. It's just
been so long since I've delt with an issue like this in Win9x that I
can't remember.

If I can use XCOPY, is it even necessary to make a 20gb partition, or
could I make a different scheme?

[philo]

Post by philo

Post by Steven Saunderson

Post by SlickRCBD
Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to
the primary partition on the new drive?

It should be possible. I've copied everything except the swapfile from
an active system drive to a backup. There might be a problem copying
files such as SYSTEM.DAT and USER.DAT depending on the copy program you
use. XCOPY might do the job. I used a homemade copy program with a
very relaxed input file open which is the only way I could access some
files. There is also a program called XXCOPY (freeware) which might
help here.
--
Steven

XXCOPY should do the trick
xxcopy /clone would be the switch to use
Also, Acronis True Image is an excellent disk cloning utility
though it's not free ware, they do have a free trial available
BTW: Though it is generally OK to use...(though it may not always work
perfectly)
xcopy that's already included with windows will generally do the job
If must be used from a command promopt window (rather than pure dos)
xcopy will also invoke xcopy32 where needed
A typical usage would be xcopy /s/c/h/r/e/k

I remember doing this with MS-DOS, but I wasn't sure if I could do it with
Windows 9X. I know you can't do it with XP because of the stupid
"activation code" that checks your hardware configuration and disables
windows if you change things enough. That's part of the reason why I asked
about making an identical partition and using diskcopy. It's just been so
long since I've delt with an issue like this in Win9x that I can't
remember.
If I can use XCOPY, is it even necessary to make a 20gb partition, or
could I make a different scheme?

As far as setting up your partitions...that's up to you.

If you do use xcopy, just remember that it must be used from a command box
from within Windows
not from pure dos as all the switches will not work

But xxcopy /clone is generally the preferred method.


As for XP, xcopy will not work due to it not being able to copy "system
volume information" etc
so cloning software such as Acronis is needed.
It has nothing to do with licensing

[Gary S. Terhune]

I'd use BootIt NG partition and clone the drive. Get a free demo for the
purpose.
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-bootit-next-generation.htm

Use the download to make the bootable floppy (or CD) installation disk then
boot to that disk. CANCEL the installation, then use Partition Work to view
drives, repartition, clone partitions to different drive, etc
--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

I just aquired a 60gb drive that I'd like to use to replace the C drive in
a win98 system. I no longer have a working OEM CD, and a generic win98 CD
would not have the proper drivers. I'm thinking of keeping the dying 20gb
drive as a backup.
Is it possible to temporarily disconnect the ZIP drive I haven't used in
over a year and install the new drive as a slave, make a 20gb primary
partition, and make the remaining space an extended partition on the new
drive. Then use the old MS-DOS command DISKCOPY to copy the C drive to the
primary partition on the new drive?
If I then hook up the new drive as the C drive, would I expect things to
work perfectly?
I know, the obvious answer is to hook things up with the new drive as a
slave, but I have all four IDE channels tied up, so in order to hook it up
I have to take something out. I'm not even sure if I still have the old
panels for the bays, and I'd lose the functionality of that device.

[98 Guy]

I no longer have a working OEM CD, and a generic win98 CD would
not have the proper drivers.

How exactly do you define a "generic" win98 CD?

All win-98 CD's have the same inventory of (hardware) drivers.

And it really doesn't matter what drivers a given CD does or doesn't
have. The first thing you should do after a fresh install of 98 is to
install the motherboard drivers for your hardware, which (unless the
motherboard is 6+ years old) you will NOT find on a win98 cd anyways.

I know, the obvious answer is to hook things up with the new
drive as a slave,

If I understand what you're trying to do, you're trying to copy a
win-98 installation from a 20 gb driver to a 60 gb drive.

Use something like Norton Ghost to do that. You'll end up with an
exact clone.

Simply hook your 20 gb drive as a master on your primary IDE channel,
and your 60 gb drive as a master on the secondary IDE channel. Set
your BIOS to boot from a floppy, and then boot from a floppy with
Norton Ghost on it. Any old version of Ghost will do the job.

Select "Copy - Drive - to - Drive". The default will be to over-write
the secondary IDE drive with a copy of the primary IDE drive.

When you're done, move the 60 gb drive to the Primary IDE channel as
master, and then hook up all your other drives. I assume you will not
be using the 20 gb drive any more, so it gets put in a shoe box I
guess.

If your existing win-98 installation is a few years old, your best
option is to re-install win-98 on the 60gb hard drive and then
carefully apply all the updates, patches, fixes, and optimizations
that are well documented. You'll end up with a more stable system
that way.