Copy W2K Pro from FAT to NTFS w/o reinstalling?

[Adam Cole]

I'm doing a major HDD upgrade (from an ominously clicking IBM
"deathstar" to a hardware RAID-1 setup) and would like to preserve the
elaborately tweaked W2K SP4 install which I currently have on a FAT16
partition (facilitates interoperability with my current NT4/W98/W2K
multi-boot setup).

My goal is a dual-boot with W98 and W2K. Obviously, the primary
partition must be some flavor of FAT so that W98 can boot, but I want to
switch everything else to NTFS. Ideally, I would like to copy the
existing W2K install onto a newly-created NTFS extended partition that has:

-- 4KB cluster size
-- contiguous MFT
-- default permissions applied to all OS files

From what I understand, if I simply run convert.exe after cloning the
FAT partition I'll be stuck with a fragmented MFT and 512-byte clusters.

My hare-brained workaround plan is:
1. Create & format FAT32 primary and NTFS extended partitions on new
mirrored drive.

2. Boot to NT4 SP6 and copy entire W2K logical drive to NTFS partition.
Copy or clone W98 to FAT32 primary partition.

3. Adjust hardware + BIOS to new config.

4. Boot to a W98-vintage DOS floppy, run FDISK /mbr, then set W98
partition active, then do SYS C: (i.e., make W98 primary partition
bootable).

5. Boot to W2K CD-ROM and run NT repair to make W2K partition bootable.

6. From within W2K, use Disk Manager to reset drive letters as
necessary, and run secedit /configure /db C:\winnt\temp\temp.mdb /Cfg to
re-apply default security settings.

The typical problem with my hare-brained plans is that I always forget
something obvious ;-) Will this work, or should I just give up and do a
clean W2K install?

thanks,
Adam C

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm doing a major HDD upgrade (from an ominously clicking IBM
"deathstar" to a hardware RAID-1 setup) and would like to preserve the
elaborately tweaked W2K SP4 install which I currently have on a FAT16
partition (facilitates interoperability with my current NT4/W98/W2K
multi-boot setup).

My goal is a dual-boot with W98 and W2K. Obviously, the primary
partition must be some flavor of FAT so that W98 can boot, but I want to
switch everything else to NTFS. Ideally, I would like to copy the
existing W2K install onto a newly-created NTFS extended partition that has:

-- 4KB cluster size
-- contiguous MFT
-- default permissions applied to all OS files

From what I understand, if I simply run convert.exe after cloning the
FAT partition I'll be stuck with a fragmented MFT and 512-byte clusters.

My hare-brained workaround plan is:
1. Create & format FAT32 primary and NTFS extended partitions on new
mirrored drive.

2. Boot to NT4 SP6 and copy entire W2K logical drive to NTFS partition.
Copy or clone W98 to FAT32 primary partition.

3. Adjust hardware + BIOS to new config.

4. Boot to a W98-vintage DOS floppy, run FDISK /mbr, then set W98
partition active, then do SYS C: (i.e., make W98 primary partition
bootable).

5. Boot to W2K CD-ROM and run NT repair to make W2K partition bootable.

6. From within W2K, use Disk Manager to reset drive letters as
necessary, and run secedit /configure /db C:\winnt\temp\temp.mdb /Cfg to
re-apply default security settings.

The typical problem with my hare-brained plans is that I always forget
something obvious ;-) Will this work, or should I just give up and do a
clean W2K install?

thanks,
Adam C

Your scheme is workable in principle but there are a few holes in it.
Before going into details, I need to know more about your current
multi-booting environment. You need to state exactly which OS is
visible on which drive, and if you use the native WinNT/2000 boot
loader.

 

[Adam Cole]

Your scheme is workable in principle but there are a few holes in it.
Before going into details, I need to know more about your current
multi-booting environment. You need to state exactly which OS is
visible on which drive, and if you use the native WinNT/2000 boot
loader.

OK. Right now I have 2 ide HDD as primary master and slave. All the
OS-related stuff is on the 20GB pri master. First partition is
primary/system with one logical drive; it's 2GB FAT16 and contains
Win2K. The remainder is a single extended partition with 6 logical
drives, all of them likewise FAT16. NT4 SP6 is installed on the first
of these; Win98SE, on the second. The last four logical drives are just
apps + data.

I do use the native NT/2000 OS loader. My boot.ini looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation
Version 4.00"
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation
Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos

Hope that's enough info.

Adam C.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Your scheme is workable in principle but there are a few holes in it.
Before going into details, I need to know more about your current
multi-booting environment. You need to state exactly which OS is
visible on which drive, and if you use the native WinNT/2000 boot
loader.

OK. Right now I have 2 ide HDD as primary master and slave. All the
OS-related stuff is on the 20GB pri master. First partition is
primary/system with one logical drive; it's 2GB FAT16 and contains
Win2K. The remainder is a single extended partition with 6 logical
drives, all of them likewise FAT16. NT4 SP6 is installed on the first
of these; Win98SE, on the second. The last four logical drives are just
apps + data.

I do use the native NT/2000 OS loader. My boot.ini looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation
Version 4.00"
C:\="Microsoft Windows 98"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation
Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos

Hope that's enough info.

Adam C.

The most versatile, modular and robust method to handle your type
of requirement would consist of installing every OS into its own
partition, and hiding the partitions from each other so that each
would appear as drive C:. Some third party boot loaders such
as XOSL (free!) can handle this with ease.

Your installation is not modular: The various OSs are dependent
on each other. You will have to maintain the following drive letters,
going by your second post:
c: - Win2000
e: - Win98

These drive letters are cast in concrete. They cannot be changed.

This creates an obvious problem: Since Win2000 must run on
drive C:, and since you want it to be NTFS, you can no longer
boot into Win98. If you wish to retain the ability to boot into Win98
then you must either drop the NTFS requirement or use a third-party
boot loader.

You now face this decision:
a) Run Win2000 on NTFS, and use a third-party boot loader, or
b) Run Win2000 on FAT32, and use the native Win2000 boot loader.

Post again after you have reached a decision. By the way, I warmly
recommend XOSL. It's vastly superior to the native Win2000 boot
loader and you can easily uninstall it, without losing your exising OSs.

 

[Adam Cole]

Your installation is not modular: The various OSs are dependent
on each other. You will have to maintain the following drive letters,
going by your second post:
c: - Win2000
e: - Win98

That's right.

These drive letters are cast in concrete. They cannot be changed.

That would be the obvious thing I neglected, then! I knew Win98 was
inflexible like this. But I had always assumed I could use Disk Mgr in
Win2000 to re-assign partition 1 as D: and partition 2 as C:. I just
tried the first step, and damned if it didn't say, "Cannot modify the
drive letter of your system or boot volume."

There's another dimension to this which may also become relevant: The
new boot/OS disk will be a RAID 1 array running off a new 3rd-party PCI
ATA-133 controller board. The mainboard ATA-33 channels will still be
active (they'll definitely have CD/DVD drives, and probably one older HD
also). I don't quite know how this will affect any set-in-stone drive
letter assignments. I assume the drive-lettering protocol will treat
the RAID card just like a SCSI adapter, but that doesn't necessarily
tell me much: I have some SCSI drives right now that get assigned dead
last, but I'm not booting from them.

You now face this decision:
a) Run Win2000 on NTFS, and use a third-party boot loader, or
b) Run Win2000 on FAT32, and use the native Win2000 boot loader.

Post again after you have reached a decision. By the way, I warmly
recommend XOSL. It's vastly superior to the native Win2000 boot
loader and you can easily uninstall it, without losing your exising OSs.

Sign me up for option (a). I'd much rather have a rational, modular
multiboot setup such as you describe, because I will probably play
around with XP and some flavor of LINUX eventually. I'm certainly
willing to try XOSL as a solution--I've heard of these kinds of
solutions, but never quite grasped the nuts and bolts of hiding
active/primary partitions from one another. What else do I need to know?

Adam

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

That's right.


That would be the obvious thing I neglected, then! I knew Win98 was
inflexible like this. But I had always assumed I could use Disk Mgr in
Win2000 to re-assign partition 1 as D: and partition 2 as C:. I just
tried the first step, and damned if it didn't say, "Cannot modify the
drive letter of your system or boot volume."

There's another dimension to this which may also become relevant: The
new boot/OS disk will be a RAID 1 array running off a new 3rd-party PCI
ATA-133 controller board. The mainboard ATA-33 channels will still be
active (they'll definitely have CD/DVD drives, and probably one older HD
also). I don't quite know how this will affect any set-in-stone drive
letter assignments. I assume the drive-lettering protocol will treat
the RAID card just like a SCSI adapter, but that doesn't necessarily
tell me much: I have some SCSI drives right now that get assigned dead
last, but I'm not booting from them.


Sign me up for option (a). I'd much rather have a rational, modular
multiboot setup such as you describe, because I will probably play
around with XP and some flavor of LINUX eventually. I'm certainly
willing to try XOSL as a solution--I've heard of these kinds of
solutions, but never quite grasped the nuts and bolts of hiding
active/primary partitions from one another. What else do I need to know?

Adam

Fine. Here is the partition scheme I propose:
1. Primary NTFS, for Win2000
2. Primary NTFS, for WinXP
3. Primary FAT32, for Win98
4. Logical FAT32, for data (visible to all OSs)
5. Logical FAT for XOSL (15 MBytes)

This configuration is totally modular. It has one drawback:
You would have to reload Win98 (because Win98 will be
visible on drive C: instead of drive E. You can avoid this
like so:

1. Primary NTFS, for Win2000
2. Primary NTFS, for WinXP
3. Primary FAT (dummy 1 MByte partition)
4. Logical FAT (dummy 1 MByte partition)
5. Logical FAT32, for Win98
6. Logical FAT32, for data (visible to all OSs)
7. Logical FAT for XOSL (15 MBytes). Label it "XOSL"!

The dummy partitions won't waste much space but
they will force Win98 to run on drive E:.

And here is how you get there:
Step 1: Partition your new disk while running Win2000.
Step 2: Boot into WinNT.
Step 3: Use xcopy.exe to copy Win2000 to the new Win2000
partition. Make sure to include the hidden files!
Step 4: Use xcopy.exe to copy Win98 to its partition. Copy msdos.sys
the the first FAT partition, whichever it is.
Step 5: Disconnect the old disk and make the new disk the master.
Step 6: Boot with your Win2000 CD and get into the Command Console.
Step 7: Run fixboot and fixmbr.
Step 8: Boot off the hard disk. Win2000 should start.
Step 9: Get a free copy of XOSL. Expand it on your data drive.
Step 10: Boot off a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
Step 11: Run sys c: so that you can boot into Win98. Check c:\msdos.sys.
Step 11: Install XOSL. Select "Dedicated partition". You will see two
possible target partitions. Press PgDn until the "XOSL" partition is
highlighted. Do not under any circumstances install it elsewhere!
Step 12: Reboot, then add Win2000 to the XOSL boot menu.
Step 13: Modify the Win2000 menu item by hiding the WinXP, the dummy and the
Win98 partitions.
Step 14: Add Win98 to the XOSL menu. Hide the Win2000/XP partitions.

Tha'ts all!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

That's right.


That would be the obvious thing I neglected, then! I knew Win98 was
inflexible like this. But I had always assumed I could use Disk Mgr in
Win2000 to re-assign partition 1 as D: and partition 2 as C:. I just
tried the first step, and damned if it didn't say, "Cannot modify the
drive letter of your system or boot volume."

There's another dimension to this which may also become relevant: The
new boot/OS disk will be a RAID 1 array running off a new 3rd-party PCI
ATA-133 controller board. The mainboard ATA-33 channels will still be
active (they'll definitely have CD/DVD drives, and probably one older HD
also). I don't quite know how this will affect any set-in-stone drive
letter assignments. I assume the drive-lettering protocol will treat
the RAID card just like a SCSI adapter, but that doesn't necessarily
tell me much: I have some SCSI drives right now that get assigned dead
last, but I'm not booting from them.


Sign me up for option (a). I'd much rather have a rational, modular
multiboot setup such as you describe, because I will probably play
around with XP and some flavor of LINUX eventually. I'm certainly
willing to try XOSL as a solution--I've heard of these kinds of
solutions, but never quite grasped the nuts and bolts of hiding
active/primary partitions from one another. What else do I need to know?

Adam

In my previous note I omitted to give a general explanation about XOSL
and how it works. Here it is.

When you install XOSL, it adds a small piece of code to the Master Boot
Record (MBR) on your disk. This code executes automatically at boot
time. It ensures that XOSL is in control at the beginning.

When you select an OS from within XOSL, XOSL will selectively
hide partitions. It will then pass control to the boot sector of the
chosen partition.

The boot sector of the chosen partition contains OS-specific code.
In the case of WinNT/2000/XP, that code will launch ntdetect.com.
In the case of Win9x, it launches io.sys.

You can uninstall XOSL in two ways:
- By its own uninstall program, or
- By running fdisk /mbr

The machine will now boot into its first visible and active partition.

Note that XOSL does NOT modify the boot sector of the various
drives. It only modifies the MBR and the settings within its own partition.

 

[Adam Cole]

1. Primary NTFS, for Win2000
2. Primary NTFS, for WinXP
3. Primary FAT (dummy 1 MByte partition)
4. Logical FAT (dummy 1 MByte partition)
5. Logical FAT32, for Win98
6. Logical FAT32, for data (visible to all OSs)
7. Logical FAT for XOSL (15 MBytes). Label it "XOSL"!

The dummy partitions won't waste much space but
they will force Win98 to run on drive E:.

Would there be complications if I made #2 & #3 into large, useful FAT32
data partitions instead of dummies? That would eliminate your #6 above,
and would put Win98 at the far end of the 160 GB disk/array. If I
understand your stepwise instructions clearly, the actual Win98 system
boot record would end up on partition #3 in the above scenario, so I'm
thinking it shouldn't matter where the logical partition containing
Win98 resides so long as the correct drive letter is maintained. But it
does seem that I would need to keep the combined size of #1 and #2 below
8GB so that Win98's boot sector at the start of #3 falls within the 8GB
boot limit...correct?

BTW, I do have partition magic; forgot it also has a boot manager. I
assume I could do something analogous to XOSL with Boot Magic if I set
it to hide the extraneous OS partitions in each case. I believe PM lets
you browse contents of partitions thus hidden--I don't know if that
facility extends to partitions hidden by XOSL. Is there more than one
way to hide a partition?

And here is how you get there:
Step 1: Partition your new disk while running Win2000.
Step 2: Boot into WinNT.
[etc...]

I think this may be the most helpful, cogent set of responses I've ever
received on USENET. I may have some further questions, but you've
already saved me from a boatload of futile effort, and I wanted to
express my thanks before the thread gets too deep. You've definitely
earned the "V" in your MVP!

Adam

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below.

Would there be complications if I made #2 & #3 into large, useful FAT32
data partitions instead of dummies? That would eliminate your #6 above,
and would put Win98 at the far end of the 160 GB disk/array.

*** You could indeed to this.

If I understand your stepwise instructions clearly, the actual Win98 system
boot record would end up on partition #3 in the above scenario, so I'm
thinking it shouldn't matter where the logical partition containing
Win98 resides so long as the correct drive letter is maintained.

*** Correct

But it
does seem that I would need to keep the combined size of #1 and #2 below
8GB so that Win98's boot sector at the start of #3 falls within the 8GB
boot limit...correct?

*** I don't think so. AFAIK, the 8 GByte limit only applies for the
*** native boot process, not when XOSL is running the show.
*** You'll have to try it!

BTW, I do have partition magic; forgot it also has a boot manager. I
assume I could do something analogous to XOSL with Boot Magic if I set
it to hide the extraneous OS partitions in each case. I believe PM lets
you browse contents of partitions thus hidden--I don't know if that
facility extends to partitions hidden by XOSL. Is there more than one
way to hide a partition?

*** Each Windows partition is characterised by a hex code:
*** 1: FAT12 11: hidden FAT12
*** 7: NTFS 17: hidden NTFS
*** AFAIK, all types above $1F are hidden from Windows.
*** Get a copy of ptedit.exe (ftp://ftp.powerquest.com/pub/utilities/)
*** to see the partition types.

*** You can probably do what I said with PQMagic but since
*** I have never used its boot manager functions, I can provide
*** no guidance.

*** If you are familiar with imaging products (e.g. DriveImage)
*** then you should consider saving your OSs to a backup disk.
*** If something goes wrong then you can easily restore them
*** to the appropriate target partition.

And here is how you get there:
Step 1: Partition your new disk while running Win2000.
Step 2: Boot into WinNT.
[etc...]

I think this may be the most helpful, cogent set of responses I've ever
received on USENET. I may have some further questions, but you've
already saved me from a boatload of futile effort, and I wanted to
express my thanks before the thread gets too deep. You've definitely
earned the "V" in your MVP!

Adam

*** I appreciate your comments.

 

[Adam Cole]

Well, I prevailed in my efforts to implement this scheme
(http://tinyurl.com/5nrls) although it proved a Pyrrhic victory.
The results and comments below are for the benefit of Googlers; I
guarantee everyone else will be bored to tears (Pegasus might possibly
be interested.)

--I wimped out and didn't try placing the first FAT partition beyond
8GB, so someone else will have to try that experiment.

-- After creating the mirror and installing the RAID card drivers I used
Partition Magic to set up the complete partitioning scheme, then copied
everything (apps, data) etc. onto the array first. My apps are in a
separate FAT partition (registry expects F; they couldn't be xcopied
because of open/in-use files, and couldn't be direct-imaged or xcopied
from DOS because their destination was NTFS. Finally had to image them
to a temporary fat32 and then xcopy to the ultimate destination; R-Drive
Image was helpful in imaging the partition from within windows while
files were in use.

-- While trying to boot off the Win2000 CD to do a repair, the initial
setup file transfer kept crashing with "File XXX is corrupt" shortly
after I hit F6 to load aux. mass storage drivers. This led me down
several wrong paths; eventually I found it was due to my Plextor CDRW
not playing nice with real-mode drivers. Switched to my NEC DVD-RW, fed
it the RAID miniport driver, and all was well.

-- The recovery console showed a Win2002 installation at J:\Winnt, which
I thought strange. Running fixboot j: and fixmbr led to "NTLDR IS
MISSING" message. After booting to floppy, copying ntldr, ntdetect.com,
etc. to the boot partition, and manually writing a new boot.ini I
got the NT/2000 loader back and was able to at least start Win2000.

-- Unfortunately I could not log on...the desktop never appeared and it
just kept kicking me back out to the user/pw screen, even in safe mode.
After much grief at the idea of doing a clean install, I found out
that this is symptomatic of the wrong drive letter being assigned to the
so-called "system" partition (the one that contains the boot files, not
necessarily the OS). This is described in the Microsoft KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=249321
In a variant of suggested fix #2, I finally hooked up my old boot drive
as master and started the old instance of Win2000 successfully.
Thankfully it didn't choke on the multiple visible active primary
partitions. That let me run regedt32 and load the system hive from the
new install. By comparing the hex GUID values in the two
HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices keys I was able to determine that my grafted
install had dubbed the system partition "M:" and the Win2000 boot
partition "K:". ("M'kay...," I thought.) I edited these to Z: and C:
respectively, rebooted without the old HD, and finally made it to the
desktop on my new install.
In retrospect, fix #3--replacing
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\
Userinit:Reg_SZ:C:\WINNT\system32\userinit.exe]
with
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\
Userinit:Reg_SZ:userinit.exe]--would probably have been much easier.

-- Everything else (getting to Win98, installing & configuring XOSL,
etc) went off without major incident. However, upon trying to use Win2K
after applying default security permissions, I found that IE6 was broken
such that it wouldn't open links in new windows or spawn pop-ups. I
tried fixing that, and wound up breaking more stuff, to the point where
I just gave up and did a clean re-install. Hence the Pyrrhic victory.
Of course, I have no idea whether the migration to NTFS caused this
problem, or whether it was some quirk unique to my system.

I think that my initial use of Partition Magic may have contributed to
the weird drive-letter behavior. After finishing all steps, I used Disk
Manager to reassign drive letters to something sensible and get my
applications back onto F:\, then used PMagic to delete a superfluous
temporary FAT partition and resize others. When I rebooted, I found
that the system partition I had named Z: was now called J:!

Moral: drive letters can be a giant pain in the ass.

Adam C

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Well, I prevailed in my efforts to implement this scheme
(http://tinyurl.com/5nrls) although it proved a Pyrrhic victory.
The results and comments below are for the benefit of Googlers; I
guarantee everyone else will be bored to tears (Pegasus might possibly
be interested.)

--I wimped out and didn't try placing the first FAT partition beyond
8GB, so someone else will have to try that experiment.

-- After creating the mirror and installing the RAID card drivers I used
Partition Magic to set up the complete partitioning scheme, then copied
everything (apps, data) etc. onto the array first. My apps are in a
separate FAT partition (registry expects F; they couldn't be xcopied
because of open/in-use files, and couldn't be direct-imaged or xcopied
from DOS because their destination was NTFS. Finally had to image them
to a temporary fat32 and then xcopy to the ultimate destination; R-Drive
Image was helpful in imaging the partition from within windows while
files were in use.

-- While trying to boot off the Win2000 CD to do a repair, the initial
setup file transfer kept crashing with "File XXX is corrupt" shortly
after I hit F6 to load aux. mass storage drivers. This led me down
several wrong paths; eventually I found it was due to my Plextor CDRW
not playing nice with real-mode drivers. Switched to my NEC DVD-RW, fed
it the RAID miniport driver, and all was well.

-- The recovery console showed a Win2002 installation at J:\Winnt, which
I thought strange. Running fixboot j: and fixmbr led to "NTLDR IS
MISSING" message. After booting to floppy, copying ntldr, ntdetect.com,
etc. to the boot partition, and manually writing a new boot.ini I
got the NT/2000 loader back and was able to at least start Win2000.

-- Unfortunately I could not log on...the desktop never appeared and it
just kept kicking me back out to the user/pw screen, even in safe mode.
After much grief at the idea of doing a clean install, I found out
that this is symptomatic of the wrong drive letter being assigned to the
so-called "system" partition (the one that contains the boot files, not
necessarily the OS). This is described in the Microsoft KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=249321
In a variant of suggested fix #2, I finally hooked up my old boot drive
as master and started the old instance of Win2000 successfully.
Thankfully it didn't choke on the multiple visible active primary
partitions. That let me run regedt32 and load the system hive from the
new install. By comparing the hex GUID values in the two
HKLM\SYSTEM\MountedDevices keys I was able to determine that my grafted
install had dubbed the system partition "M:" and the Win2000 boot
partition "K:". ("M'kay...," I thought.) I edited these to Z: and C:
respectively, rebooted without the old HD, and finally made it to the
desktop on my new install.
In retrospect, fix #3--replacing
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\
Userinit:Reg_SZ:C:\WINNT\system32\userinit.exe]
with
[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon\
Userinit:Reg_SZ:userinit.exe]--would probably have been much easier.

-- Everything else (getting to Win98, installing & configuring XOSL,
etc) went off without major incident. However, upon trying to use Win2K
after applying default security permissions, I found that IE6 was broken
such that it wouldn't open links in new windows or spawn pop-ups. I
tried fixing that, and wound up breaking more stuff, to the point where
I just gave up and did a clean re-install. Hence the Pyrrhic victory.
Of course, I have no idea whether the migration to NTFS caused this
problem, or whether it was some quirk unique to my system.

I think that my initial use of Partition Magic may have contributed to
the weird drive-letter behavior. After finishing all steps, I used Disk
Manager to reassign drive letters to something sensible and get my
applications back onto F:\, then used PMagic to delete a superfluous
temporary FAT partition and resize others. When I rebooted, I found
that the system partition I had named Z: was now called J:!

Moral: drive letters can be a giant pain in the ass.

Adam C

Thanks for the feedback. The problems you describe (except for
the IE issue) are well known, as are the fixes.