Hard drive swap FAT16 to FAT32 question

[Unsecured Loner]

You are almost always better off doing a clean install, especiall with all the issues you're dealing with here.

[ChevyGa]

Yeah I know. The only problem is that this is a Hewlett Packard and a few of the programs that originally came with the computer are still used. There is no way to reinstall these as a HP does not come with the original install disk. Just a cruddy rescue CD which totally reformats the HD and puts everything back to the way it came. That's why I'm desperate for a work around.

[jbyron]

In most cases all the programs or on the disk.
The trick is to now how to install just the programs you wont from it.

[Glynn R Harris]

ChevyGa;
In answer to your questions, if I follow them-- number 2 is on the right track.

Files is files. How the disk stores them is it's own business... So if you set up your new disk as FAT32, and copy over your files from your old FAT16 disk, you are all set.

In this case, I don't know if using Ghost for that file transfer is the best answer--- I have no experience with Ghost, though many here do, and can tell you if it will work.

I do know that all the files can be transferred successfully using XCOPY32.

I think the switches needed, if I remember, are like:
C:/>xcopy32 c: d: /h/i/c/k/e/r/y

Please someone verify or correct this info! http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif It's been a long time since I did this....
<<EDIT: used UBB Correctly this time to boldface the command...>>

[This message has been edited by Glynn R Harris (edited 07-06-2000).]

[ChevyGa]

I've given up on trying to set up a WD 13.1 gig drive with win95a (didn't want 5 1/2 2.1g drives) on it so I got a copy of win95b. I am going to upgrade (the old drive) to Win95b and then set up the new drive and copy the data from the old drive onto the new one. I don't even want the old Quantum bigfoot drive in the system. The questions I have is: 1-If I upgrade(the old drive) to win95b, will it convert the data on the drive to FAT32? 2-If not, is it possible to (using Ghost or the WD drivecopy utility) copy the old FAT16 drives primary partition to the new drive that I plan on setting up as FAT32? 3-If the 2 ways above won't work, is it possible to set the new drive up with a 2.1g FAT16 primary partition and a FAT32 extended partition divided into 2 drives and then copy the pri partition over. If one of the 3 ways above are not possible, am I stuck with the job of just starting over from scratch and installing win95b on the new drive and reinstalling all my software. Thanks for all who responded to my previous post.

[ChevyGa]

Thanks for the replies. It would be nice jbyron if the individual programs were there, but unfortunately they are all in a compressed file that cannot be accessed as far as I know of. HP's way of preventing software theft I guess. I'm gonna try your suggestion Glynn and let ya know if it works. By the way Ghost works great. I had to use it on a newer Hp with the same kind of drive because the WD drivecopy utility would not work. Worked like a charm. If you ever need a good disk transfer utility, I would suggest it.