Couple details, please -

Post #69,568 by Ashton 12/18/02 3:38:09 AM Reply	Couple details, please - I booted on the old one, and XCopied the old to the new with /s/h/r/e/c. Shut down and booted on a DOS floppy. With XTree, I removed attributes from \\Windows on the new drive and recopied \\Windows\\. to get the registries over. I appreciate that you wanted to get the most off in the least time, so I guess this is the drill for that (?) Ahh.. yes XTree; I've been remiss in not setting up 3.0 to boot and run from one floppy, which I think means dropping some stuff. Unclear to me whether it can accommodate a DOS 7 SYS and all - with compression garbage omitted of course (?) I've been making-do with list.com because it's small, and the CD setups of 9.x have made that lore to fade a bit. (On the 486/W3.11 I have somewhere a cute tiny .bat which can find any file on a drive using attrib w/ some switches). So then you nuked all the r-a-s-h in the new drive's \\Windows directory, then Xcopied \\Windows from the old drive. So the new 98 install on new drive - from your POV was mainly just to detect the hdwre, setup MBR etc.? Overwriting with old setup would get you any Registry garbage accumulated BUT obviate all the install dances with files in \\System etc.. Izzat it? You'd also get the old detected hardware settings but it's the same machine and I guess the Registry leaves all the HD params to the BIOS, so the different HD is no problem. If the drive weren't flaky - would you have ghosted the old setup and just installed that on new? VS 98 cold install? (Just curious; not looking for a step-by-step here) There just seem several ways to do this, and I expect you have eliminated many, for cause. ..and they are Just Now beginning to think of the word backup, eh? Ashton When the rich assemble to concern themselves with the business of the poor, it is called Charity. When the poor assemble to concern themselves with the business of the rich, it is called Anarchy. -Paul Richards
Post #69,635 by Andrew Grygus 12/18/02 12:15:49 PM Reply	The objective is . . . . . to move everything to a new hard disk without having to reinstall any drivers, software or otherwise touch a properly working** Windows installation. This particularly saves time when the owner has lost all the drivers (almost always), and essential when the owner "can't find all those software installations CDs" (most of the time). The XCopy gets just about everything but the registries and other open Windows files (the /c parameter is essential so it keeps on copying after errors (such as not being able to copy a registry file)). The files it can't copy are then copied booted to DOS. Installing the same version of Windows 98 onto this disk should adopt all registry settings, hardware drivers, licenses, etc. It won't even ask for the registration key (but you'd better have gotten that from the registry anyway, just in case something goes wrong). Yes, the registries have nothing on the MBR, BIOS Parameter Block or any other low level disk stuff, so the new disk is no problem even if it's a radically different size. Now, if you put this new disk in a new machine, you're going to have to play with drivers a bit, but that's usually no big problem - and the software installs will still be OK. In the same machine, nothing should notice that anything has changed (except there's more room). If the source disk is really flakey, you may have to just XCopy the Windows directory structure, install Windows and boot on the new drive, then XCopy directories one by one. I've had to restart Windows as many as twenty times to get everythng from a dying disk. I've never used ghost, because it requries too much preparation, a properly working machine, etc. By time a machine comes to me it's either too late, not networked or something. My methods (I have several) are easy, require minimal preparation, and work most of the time. If you have to blow the registries, that makes things a lot more complex, but you can still preserve the desktop, start menus and such. A lot of icons won't work until you reinstall the software, though. I have to emphasize that to the client because the machine looks exactly the same. Xtree Gold can be made to work from a single boot floppy with plenty of room for other utilities. All you really need are the basic functions and the editor. Generally it can open only a single subdirectory at a time on todays systems due to memory limitations, but that's usually enough. With Windows up and running, use ZTree, a much more modern interpretation of XTree without the limitations (also available for OS/2), but it won't run under DOS. ZTree is great for doing copy operations Explorer doesn't support or support well. I use a combination of all three of these tools when reconstituting a system after major surgery. I've found some Windows95 installations cannot be reconstituted no matter what, you have to upgrade to Windows 98 to get the machine to run again. **for Microsoft's definition of "properly working". [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #69,637 by deSitter 12/18/02 12:29:07 PM Reply	Re: The objective is . . . Yes, it works, and you can even move to a new machine without much trouble - what I do is delete everything once Windows sputters to a start on the new machine in Safe Mode - delete all the system devices, etc. This has no effect on the running machine. When Windows restarts, one is treated to quite a show as the entire caboodle is reinstalled appropriate to the new machine. -drl
Post #69,748 by static 12/18/02 6:23:38 PM Reply	You mean delete all devices, don't you? That is, in the System Manager. Wade. "Ah. One of the difficult questions."
Post #69,779 by deSitter 12/18/02 9:19:46 PM Reply	Re: You mean delete all devices, don't you? No, I mean delete the system devices, the ones with the same icon as a DOS prompt :) (Sorry). Windows 9x has wonderful discovery code. It will install things in order until a reboot is needed, then continue onward - it's really impressive. The upshot is, if you know what you are doing, you can rip a drive out of a 9x machine and stick it in some random PC, and chances are it will be fully functional in a few hours. -drl
Post #69,638 by inthane-chan 12/18/02 12:29:47 PM Reply	Dunno if this will help. Here was my old "move Win9x to another drive without horking anything" technique. Set swap file size to 0. Boot off the original drive to safe mode. Get a command prompt xcopy32 c:\\. d:\\ /h /e /c /k When this is done, swap drives, run FDISK to set the new drive as primary, and boot. Never had this technique fail once for me for all flavors of Win9x, except WinME, which I haven't used it against. YMMV. Gimli's Rules for Surviving in Middle Earth #43: When attempting to destroy an artifact, remember to use somebody else's axe.
Post #70,222 by Ashton 12/21/02 7:08:46 AM Reply	Thanks all for nostrums - added to tool kit. When the rich assemble to concern themselves with the business of the poor, it is called Charity. When the poor assemble to concern themselves with the business of the rich, it is called Anarchy. -Paul Richards

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