how do I move my Op system from 1 drive to another.

[Rowie]

I have just bought a new hard drive which I have installed as a primary slave for now. I want to transfer my operating system (W98) and all the other programs I have installed, to my new drive. My old 2gig hdd is on deaths door. I have been to the website of the manufacturer of my new hdd which is www.excelstor.com and they are about as usefull as an ashtray on a motorbike. Does anyone know where I can get hold of freeware/shareware software that will transfer the data for me?
Or any hints/tips on how to do this.
I have heard of norton Ghost but since ive just bought this drive im a little bit skint.


:confused: Rowie

[fishninja007]

If you have another comp available what I always did was put your current (source) drive and new (target) drive as primary slave and secondary master on the second comp. Boot the second comp off of its drive (since it is still primary master), select all, copy, paste and viola. (make sure that hidden files are shown from the view->folder options menu)

If you don't have a computer I think you can put the new drive in your comp as secondary slave, boot off your current drive and copy everything from the current to the new drive except the swap file. The swap file should be a big file in the root directory, make sure that hidden files are shown or else you won't see it. I think this worked with Win95, in any event, can't hurt to try.

In both cases, I think when you are done and set the new drive to primary master you might need to boot up off a floppy and run SYS C:, or format that drive with FORMAT /S before you copy the files, otherwise it isn't bootable.

[SEALTEAMTHREE]

Did you buy a new harddrive or get it used from someone? If its new it should've come with a bootable floppy drive that will have a basic harddrive cloning program. If you got it used, look on a search engine for "hard drive clone" or "cloning program". They let you boot from a floppy and transfer all of the contents of the source drive to the destination drive.

[Rowie]

Thanks for the help guys..
I bought the drive new from a trade counter via work and they didnt supply any software.
So far I have managed to copy and paste everything accross except the swap file, I will attempt to swap the drives around turning the new drive into the master and see if it will boot.
Failing that i will search for the Clone software.
I will let you know how I get on..

Rowie...

[Psycho Logical]

Duplicating Windows 95/98/98 Second Edition Installation to a New Hard Disk
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q166172

[Rowie]

Well at last I did it. I used a program called xclone.exe to clone my old drive. Which bye the way has finally keeled over and died. RIP.
Once again thanx for the help guys.

Rowie :D

[Sea Walnut]

where did you get "xclone.exe"?
I've got this software from maxtor actually. It's called maxblast plus. Really gay name, but great software. Stick it on a floppy, and lets you copy any drive to another drive and does the whole thing in about 20 minutes. Really nice program, and if you want I can send you a floppy. It does the whole thing through dos, and even does formatting and partitioning. It's free from the maxtor website, methinks. Check it out if you would like to.

[Martingi]

Use the program called norton Ghost, it make a full image of one drive and then sends it to the other.:)

[Shagnasty]

I've been using Ghost since before Symantec bought it and
incorporated it into their SystemWorks package...It's great...
You can do more with it than I care to learn...including spanning
image files across multiple CD's for a complete backup. I use
it mainly to create a drive Image file once I've completed a
setup so I can restore the system to that point quickly...
Usually takes about 10 min. to clone a 40gb drive...
I actually don't recommend Cloning from a drive that's on it's
death bed though...I usually wipe my drive about every six
months...Repartition, Reformat and start over...Windows
gets dirty over time...I install and uninstall a lot of software
just checking it out...and it leaves a lot of **** behind..

[scoots987]

I know this is an old thread. But I used a program called Drive Image by Power Quest, the makers of Partition Magic. I have used it on four different transfers. Win98, Win2k. It is a great program.

Scoots987

[koolit]

With all Windows 9x: Prepare the new drive with fdisk; format the active partition with the /s switch; slave it to the old drive; open a DOS window in the old drive and start at the root directory c:\ and type xcopy/s/e/c/h/r/k/y *.* "destination drive" (the active partition on the new drive) hit Enter. Remove the old drive and configure the new one as the master on the primary controller. If you have done this correctly, you will not see a difference between the old drive and the new.:)

[Rowie]

I didnt think this thread would go on this long.

Koolit,
I thought of using xcopy but i didnt think it would copy hidden/system/registry files even with all the switches on.

I forgot to mention when I cloned my old drive to my new one my old drive then stopped working so I'd done it just in time.
BUT this is the best bit, when I Fdisk'd my new one I forgot to make it a bootable Disk, so I had one dead(old) hd and 1 new hd with everything on but I couldnt boot up from it. So I had to take my new HD to work, transfer all my data on to a spare drive, fdisk my new hd properly to make it bootable transfer all my data back to my new hd, then take it back home. What a performance !!!
No one told me when you fdisk a new drive you have to make it a bootable disk, format /s doesnt do it properly.

Still it worked out in the end


:cool: