HD copy + system files

[MIDIman]

I just got a new drive and need to perfectly copy my current bootup drive (Win98 entirely) to the new drive. How exactly should I do this?

 

[spurdy]

In order to preserve the "bootability" of your drive and all of your system settings, you'll probably be best served by using drive imaging software. The two titles that I know of are PowerQuest Drive Image (http://www.powerquest.com/driveimage/index.html) and Norton Ghost (http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/). These programs make an "image" file, containing all information about the partition, which can then be copied to a new machine and restored. The catch is that you can't create the file on the partition that you're imaging (since that would be chaning the information on it while you're making the image). So, if you only have one partition on the drive, you'll probably need to do some juggling to make it work out.

If you have enough space on your new drive, you could do the following:
- Install the new drive and partition it into two pieces, the first being the same size as your original drive.
- Create the image of your original drive, storing it on the second partition of the new drive.
- Remove the old drive entirely and restore the image file onto the first partition on the new drive.

This way you'd end up with an exact copy of your original C: drive, along with a D: drive which would be the remaining space on the new disk. After you're sure that the image restored properly, you could wipe the old drive and put it back in for extra space.

If that sounds convoluted, it is, but it should work, provided that there is enough space on the new disk to accomodate the operation.

Good luck!

 

[brow]

Ghost RULES!

 

[MIDIman]

Thx spurdy...I'm pretty sure I have a copy of Ghost lying around here somewhere, but I've never used it. Anyone else have a method of doing this?

 

[stockjock]

Use ghost..it works great!!!

 

[Nih]

(ghost-less copy).. Attach you new drive as the secondary master. (no cd's attached is good). Boot into safe mode with your old drive's windows. Be sure to enable "show all files" in file view options. Explore your old drive contents and select all files and folders.*Deselect "Windows" folder and copy the rest on to your new drive.When finished ,create a folder on your new drive call Windows. Explore your old drive's windows and select all files. *Deselect win386.swp file. Copy the rest into your new drive's Windows folder. The reasoning is you will get an "access denied " error when trying to copy the active swap file. When finished , you should be able to attach your new drive as master and your old drive as slave , and booting into your new drive's windows, you can format yor old drive from there . and Voila~. ps.. Make sure you fdisk and format your old drive before starting this ,,, but i'm sure you know that

 

[flippinfleck]

Not sure if this works for all drives, but I've had good luck with Maxtor's utility that they provide on their MaxBlast disk. I've copied non-Maxtor drives to non-Maxtor drives a few times, no problems yet. And the best part, it's a free download that fits on one floppy. It's run before Window's, no need to worry bout space issues as long as new drive is larger or the same size.