Changing boot hard drive

[Frank McCoy]

Thank you for all the detailed info. I planned to do this, when I
read the other replies on here. It turns out that the "copy of
partition" made by Partition Magic onto the new drive, did not set
that partition as ACTIVE.

Perhaps because the drive wasn't MASTER.
(See above instructions.)
Many partitioning programs (Including FDISK) won't set a partition as
ACTIVE unless its either the *only* drive on the system, or is the
MASTER or first drive in the string. (Drive-0, not drive-1)

That's why some rather detailed instructions on how to have the drive
cabled above during the various steps.

I could not find in P.M. how to do it, so I
just used FDISK, set it to active and rebooted. I suspected all the
data to be gone, but it was still there. I also booted from a floppy
and did a SYS C: . I am booted off the new drive right now. It
worked fine. If anyone else wants to do this,

1. Use Partition Magic to "create a copy of a partition" to the new
drive. Be sure to set the new partition as PRIMARY

2. Use Fdisk to set it active while booted from a dos floppy (Win98)

3. Run SYS C: while booted from that same floppy.
I did both steps 2 and 3 at the same time before rebooting.

4. Reboot and unplug the original drive, while putting the new one on
the first plug on cable (set to Master)

5. Restart computer.

Thats all it took....

I just guessed my way thru this. The worst I could do was have to
start over, but it worked.

George

You'll probably want to copy ALL the files in the root directory over
from the original drive. Not all are *required*; but some are quite
different from the type you want for a Windows computer versus a DOS
computer; which is what FORMAT /S or SYS C: create.

XCOPY C:\ D:\ /C /H /K /R

(If your original drive is still C: Otherwise swap C: and D: in the
above command.)

Answer 'A' for "All" when prompted, "Do you wish to replace this file?"

You have to do this in a DOS window, not from DOS itself; as the XCOPY
command doesn't support those switches in a 16-bit environment.

This will copy over the Windows files that determine the basic Windows
GUI boot configuration over the ones for a DOS Command-Line boot.

The FULL XCOPY command to copy ALL files, is given in the original set
of instructions I posted.

 

[george41407]

Perhaps because the drive wasn't MASTER.
(See above instructions.)
Many partitioning programs (Including FDISK) won't set a partition as
ACTIVE unless its either the *only* drive on the system, or is the
MASTER or first drive in the string. (Drive-0, not drive-1)

That's why some rather detailed instructions on how to have the drive
cabled above during the various steps.

I had the drive set to MASTER on the second IDE cable, and with the 6
partitions I normally run, plus the edditional two on that new drive,
I got pretty confused after the reboot changed all the drive letters.
Partition Magic does have a feature to fix them, but I just wanted to
get on with the job and change the drives. Apparently the MASTER in
IDE2 made a difference, and If I do this again, I will do the cabling
as stated above. I guess theres always more than one way to do
things.

You'll probably want to copy ALL the files in the root directory over
from the original drive. Not all are *required*; but some are quite
different from the type you want for a Windows computer versus a DOS
computer; which is what FORMAT /S or SYS C: create.

XCOPY C:\ D:\ /C /H /K /R

(If your original drive is still C: Otherwise swap C: and D: in the
above command.)

Answer 'A' for "All" when prompted, "Do you wish to replace this file?"

You have to do this in a DOS window, not from DOS itself; as the XCOPY
command doesn't support those switches in a 16-bit environment.

This will copy over the Windows files that determine the basic Windows
GUI boot configuration over the ones for a DOS Command-Line boot.

The FULL XCOPY command to copy ALL files, is given in the original set
of instructions I posted.

Not sure I understand why I'd want to copy the files over. When
Partition Magic created the "copy of partition" (an exact duplicate),
it did all of that. The only difference is that I told P.M. to make
the partition larger on the new drive. It automatically created a
duplicate partition, and also the secondary partition (D as on the
original drive. Everything runs just fine. The only things I need
to copy over is my email data, and a few files I downloaded since I
made the copy. (these changed during the time it took me to figure
this out). Thats easy enough to do, just plug in my original boot
drive. copy these few files to my slave drive, change back to the new
boot drive and copy these files back. Some of this stuff is easy to
figure out, others are headbangers.....

George

 

[george41407]

You have to do this in a DOS window, not from DOS itself; as the XCOPY
command doesn't support those switches in a 16-bit environment.

I may as well ask.
Doesn't XCOPY lose the long file names? I thought XXCOPY was needed
to keep the LFNs? Maybe I'm wrong and that only happened with the Dos
prior to ver 7.x ?????

George

 

[Frank McCoy]

I had the drive set to MASTER on the second IDE cable, and with the 6
partitions I normally run, plus the edditional two on that new drive,
I got pretty confused after the reboot changed all the drive letters.
Partition Magic does have a feature to fix them, but I just wanted to
get on with the job and change the drives. Apparently the MASTER in
IDE2 made a difference, and If I do this again, I will do the cabling
as stated above. I guess theres always more than one way to do
things.


Not sure I understand why I'd want to copy the files over.

Because of the "SYS C:" command you did.
That copies the DOS configuration to the new C: drive.
If you were running Windows, you'd want the WINDOWS configuration.
The SYS C: was needed; but copying the root files is also needed.

 

[Frank McCoy]

I may as well ask.
Doesn't XCOPY lose the long file names? I thought XXCOPY was needed
to keep the LFNs? Maybe I'm wrong and that only happened with the Dos
prior to ver 7.x ?????

That's WHY you want to use XCOPY in a DOS window; not in DOS itself.
That, and the listed switches won't work.

When run from a DOS window under Windows, the long file names are
copied; and switches like "Copy hidden and system files" also work.

When run from DOS only, even though the same program is used, long file
names are NOT copied; and the extra switches don't work.

 

[DWalker]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in 4ax.com:

My computer is running Win98SE. My boot hard drive is a 6 gig drive.
I also have a 20 gig slave drive, which used to be a 10 gig. Changing
that slave was simply to plug in a 3rd drive and copy all the files to
it, then moving that drive to the second drive cable.

I have never changed that boot drive because I am not sure how. It
contains my boot stuff (Win98 and Dos). How can I copy all the boot
records to another (larger) drive? I have another 20 gigger that I'd
like to use to replace my 6 gig. I'm not worried about the other
directories on C: Those would just be a copy to the new drive. It's
just the boot records and the OS that puzzles me.

George

Use the free XXCLONE. Just search google for it.

 

[DWalker]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in

This is Win98se, so it should work fine. I am going from a 6 gig to a
20 gig drive. I am running FAT32. Now if I can find a copy of that
Western Digital software I'm set. I wonder if it's on their website?

George

You don't need any of that if you use the free XXClone. I have used it a
couple of times to enlarge a boot drive.

With the WD or Seagate tools, if you're not careful, you'll end up
installing a "disk overlay" which you probably don't need for a 20 GB disk.

David Walker