OK...Help! installing a replacement hd

[TD]

Wondered if any of you can offer assistance with my situation. I've got a
full hard drive and originally planned on backing up everything important on
it, then doing a clean wipe and fresh install. This would be a giant task,
given my busy schedule. So my wife suggested just switching it with a brand
new drive and doing the entire fresh install on that, which sounded good to
me.

Some info:
The system is an OEM Gateway, PIII-500 (from early1999), with an old STB
Velocity 4400 vid card and 384 MB of RAM (all 3 slots full). The optical
drives are (1) LG CD-RW, and (1) Matsushita DVD-ROM (along with floppy and
ZIP drives).

I've got one home system with WinXP Home on it, and would like the new hard
drive to have Win98 on it-- (I've got some software I still use that only
works on 98). And I've got my original Win98 disk available. I'm about to go
out and pick up an 80GB WD hd for the purpose. So...

Questions:

1. Can anyone link me to a detailed 'how-to' for this task?
2. After this is complete, will I be able to put my original drive back in
if I need something on it, and have my system recognize it? If not, what
would I need to do in that situation?
3. Or alternatively, should I back up my original hd first to be safe?

Thanks loads for any help on this...

TD

 

[John Doe]

3. Or alternatively, should I back up my original hd first to be safe?

Always have a copy of any important files. If you don't know the
difference, that means a backup of your whole disk.

When you are doing configuration stuff, you are asking for trouble if
you do not have a backup.

Good luck.

 

[TD]

Oops, forgot to mention-- my old drive is so borked up with spyware, adware,
etc, that transferring its contents wouldn't work. Thanks again, gang.

 

[TD]

Yeah, I understand that always makes sense. So John, does that mean you
think there's a decent chance I wouldn't be able to access my old drive
later?

 

[John Doe]

After you make a backup copy of all important files, if all you do
is turn off your computer and then unplug the hard disk drive data
and power cables, you should be able to access the hard disk drive
at any time later long as IDE interface is still available on your
mainboard.

 

[TD]

After you make a backup copy of all important files, if all you do

is turn off your computer and then unplug the hard disk drive data
and power cables, you should be able to access the hard disk drive
at any time later long as IDE interface is still available on your
mainboard.

Meaning that I don't change my mb or cables, right?

 

[John Doe]

I think my meaning was clear enough.

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From: "TD" <[email protected]>
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Meaning that I don't change my mb or cables, right?

 

[David Maynard]

Wondered if any of you can offer assistance with my situation. I've got a
full hard drive and originally planned on backing up everything important on
it, then doing a clean wipe and fresh install. This would be a giant task,
given my busy schedule. So my wife suggested just switching it with a brand
new drive and doing the entire fresh install on that, which sounded good to
me.

Some info:
The system is an OEM Gateway, PIII-500 (from early1999), with an old STB
Velocity 4400 vid card and 384 MB of RAM (all 3 slots full). The optical
drives are (1) LG CD-RW, and (1) Matsushita DVD-ROM (along with floppy and
ZIP drives).

I've got one home system with WinXP Home on it, and would like the new hard
drive to have Win98 on it-- (I've got some software I still use that only
works on 98). And I've got my original Win98 disk available. I'm about to go
out and pick up an 80GB WD hd for the purpose. So...

Questions:

1. Can anyone link me to a detailed 'how-to' for this task?

The first thing to do is check the Gateway site for that model (you didn't
say which) for what hard drive sizes it can handle because at about the
time you mentioned it was made was when the 32 gig boundary was breached
but some still had a 64 gig limit. The latest limit was 137 gig (breached
by 48 bit LBA).

If the motherboard has a limit less than your planned 80 gig then you might
want to do a BIOS update, if there is one. Otherwise you could use the hard
drive 'loadable BIOS' utility (with some restrictions on how you use the
floppy drives, because the BIOS needs to be loaded before using them).

2. After this is complete, will I be able to put my original drive back in
if I need something on it, and have my system recognize it? If not, what
would I need to do in that situation?

Assuming your IDE cable has connectors for two drives, yes, you can add the
old drive back in after you do the Windows98 install.

Depending on which manufacturer you pick for the new drive it may need it's
jumpers changed for two drive vs single master operation (Western Digital
is one that does). In either case you'd strap the old drive to be slave, if
you're putting it on the same IDE channel as the new one. If putting it on
the second IDE channel then you'd need to jumper it and the CD accordingly.

Whether you put the old drive in as slave on the primary IDE channel or on
the secondary IDE channel is a matter of preference and what you'd be using
it for. Personally, I'd put it on the secondary IDE channel, along with the
CD, because file transfer between the two hard drives would be faster that
way since both IDE channels can operate at the same time while two devices
on the same IDE channel cannot.

3. Or alternatively, should I back up my original hd first to be safe?

That's always a good idea but if you remove the old drive before you
install the new one and Windows98 then it should be relatively safe from
harm, assuming you don't drop it, reconnect it improperly, or otherwise
damage it yourself.

-->DO remove the old drive<-- before installing Windows98 because some
versions will, when you say 'yes' to format your hard drive, will merrily
format ALL the hard drives in the system, not just your shiny new 'C', as a
'convenience' so you don't 'forget' to do it.

 

[Trent©]

Oops, forgot to mention-- my old drive is so borked up with spyware, adware,
etc, that transferring its contents wouldn't work. Thanks again, gang.

That's absurd!


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[johns]

What I do ( I'm a pro ) is fairly simple, and will accomplish what you want.
I use PowerQuest Drive
Image 2002. What you do with that is install it on
another computer, and make 2 floppies that you need.
It will prompt you to do that. Then, you take your
new drive and make it the master drive ( c-drive ),
and slave your old drive to it. Boot the computer
to the 1st floppy, and select the "clone" operation.
Now ( critical ), in this clone operation, go to the
advanced options, and tell that stupid floppy not to
check a darn thing !!!!!!!!!!!!! regards bad sectors,
files, etc. The program will run, and totally copy your
old drive to the new drive. Make sure your new drive
is right much bigger ( 160g is good ). If your hardware
has not changed, there's a good chance this will work
just fine. If it doesn't work, you haven't lost anything,
and it only takes a little while to set it up. I'm assuming
you have experience setting drive jumpers, and detecting
the drives in the BIOS. If you don't have this experience,
lots of people ( kids ) do. Also, study that program.
It is a very good way to back up your new drive .. create
a D-drive, and then image the c-drive to the d-drive.
I recommend getting at least a 160 gig drive these days.
As for Win98. It is waaay past time for you to buy
WinXP SP2 and a good AV like McAfee. Something
else you might consider. Since you are limited for time,
there are guys like me out here who could do this
for you, and produce a rock solid system that would
give you no trouble. Your computer is out of date, and
a new one is not all that expensive these days. Plus
you get the OS ( WinXP Pro ) bundled with it, and
your working files, email, etc saved ... up and running
.... and backed up in an image that is safe from viruses
and vandalism. Finally, a real simple way to copy
your working files to a fresh install, is to do a fresh
install on a new drive ... slave your old drive to it as
a d-drive, and copy the working files over as you
have time. Again I assume you know not to copy
executables, and OS files over ... just your docs,
favorites, email, etc. That takes a little knowledge, but
it works fine. Still ... here I am ... and I'm worth it !!!

johns

 

[lugnut]

Johns-
Are you suggesting the new hd when setup with win98 as the C drive will boot
the pc, and the original C drive with a Windows os on it and moved to the D
drive and it's jumper set to slave, will not try to boot or do some funky
thing?
If so, the transfer of data from the old to new drive would be a snap but I
did not think it was possible to have 2 Win os's in one PC.
bob

 

[Overlord]

Not all that sure what you're asking.
I have several bootable drives on my system, out of 8 total.
Admittedly they're not IDE and I don't have to mess with master/slave
jumpers or cables or changing the BIOS settings.
In the past tho, I've had programs that would only run on 98.
You can install 98, then install another Win in a different directory.
Whichever flavor of Winders I installed beside it detected the 98 install
and made the system dual boot; ie. a menu to whichever I wanted to boot to.
I kept my 98 in a Win98 directory and my installed progs for it in a
98programs file. I kept that drive as FAT32. Of course booting to 98 on
that drive wouldn't let me see the drives in the system that were NTFS.
The trick is to install 98 first, newer OS second in a different directory
and keep their program files separated. Always keep an eye on where something
is trying to install itself.
Don't know much about IDEs and having 2 OS's on different drives. But you
can have 2 OS's on the same drive.

Johns-
Are you suggesting the new hd when setup with win98 as the C drive will boot
the pc, and the original C drive with a Windows os on it and moved to the D
drive and it's jumper set to slave, will not try to boot or do some funky
thing?
If so, the transfer of data from the old to new drive would be a snap but I
did not think it was possible to have 2 Win os's in one PC.
bob

~~~~~~
Bait for spammers:
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postmaster@[127.0.0.1]
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~~~~~~
Remove "spamless" to email me.

 

[Trent©]

Johns-
Are you suggesting the new hd when setup with win98 as the C drive will boot
the pc, and the original C drive with a Windows os on it and moved to the D
drive and it's jumper set to slave, will not try to boot or do some funky
thing?
If so, the transfer of data from the old to new drive would be a snap but I
did not think it was possible to have 2 Win os's in one PC.
bob

EVERY drive being used has an operating system on it! Some just have
more files than others, that's all. lol


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Trent©]

Wondered if any of you can offer assistance with my situation. I've got a
full hard drive and originally planned on backing up everything important on
it, then doing a clean wipe and fresh install. This would be a giant task,
given my busy schedule. So my wife suggested just switching it with a brand
new drive and doing the entire fresh install on that, which sounded good to
me.

Sounds like a plan. But you didn't say why you want to do this.

If its because your old drive is simply crowded, you can simply clone
that old drive to the new one yer buyin'. It'll look exactly like the
old drive/computer when it boots...except that you'll have more free
space. Then either keep the old drive as a backup drive or get rid of
it.

Some info:
The system is an OEM Gateway, PIII-500 (from early1999), with an old STB
Velocity 4400 vid card and 384 MB of RAM (all 3 slots full). The optical
drives are (1) LG CD-RW, and (1) Matsushita DVD-ROM (along with floppy and
ZIP drives).

I've got one home system with WinXP Home on it, and would like the new hard
drive to have Win98 on it-- (I've got some software I still use that only
works on 98). And I've got my original Win98 disk available. I'm about to go
out and pick up an 80GB WD hd for the purpose. So...

Questions:

1. Can anyone link me to a detailed 'how-to' for this task?

Jumper the new drive properly...then install it into the machine.
Boot the machine...and see if the BIOS recognizes the entire size of
the drive. Then install 98...assuming you have no size issue.

2. After this is complete, will I be able to put my original drive back in
if I need something on it, and have my system recognize it?

Yes. AFTER the new install, put that drive back in...either as a
slave on the primary controller...or somewhere on the secondary
controller. You'll see that drive as a separate drive letter...and
you can transfer to your heart's content.

If not, what
would I need to do in that situation?
3. Or alternatively, should I back up my original hd first to be safe?

No need to. That old drive WILL be your backup. Just make SURE you
don't clone in the wrong direction! You need to clone FROM the old
drive to the new drive...FROM the secondary controller TO the primary
controller, for instance. Just watch the sizes when doing the
cloning. You'll be going FROM the smaller drive TO the larger drive.

Thanks loads for any help on this...

Welcome.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[TD]

Thanks, Trent. The main reasons for a new drive are that, first, the
original is absolutely full of spyware, adware, etc. (rendering it barely
useable), and-- backing up all my files will be too time consuming for me to
do it at the moment. So it made sense to just buy another drive and backup
the old as I get time. In another post on this thread, I mentioned some of
this. I ended up taking a chance and buying a 40 gig Maxtor last night,
concerned about the size issue. If it doesn't work on this sys, I'll use it
for another later. I'm sure it doesn't make sense to most people here to not
only use W98, but to do any work at all on such an old sys. Just thought it
would be a cheap way (aside from the time involved) to jump in and learn.
Gotta start somewhere.

(more below)

If its because your old drive is simply crowded, you can simply clone
that old drive to the new one yer buyin'. It'll look exactly like the
old drive/computer when it boots...except that you'll have more free
space. Then either keep the old drive as a backup drive or get rid of
it.

The concern was all that friggin adware. The people in these adware/spyware
companies need to be lined up and SHOT.

Jumper the new drive properly...then install it into the machine.
Boot the machine...and see if the BIOS recognizes the entire size of
the drive. Then install 98...assuming you have no size issue.

There probably will be. I forgot to mention my controller is an ATA66, so I
need to find out what the limit is. This thing is a dinosaur.

Yes. AFTER the new install, put that drive back in...either as a
slave on the primary controller...or somewhere on the secondary
controller. You'll see that drive as a separate drive letter...and
you can transfer to your heart's content.

That sounds like the easiest setup for installing my important files. I like
it.

No need to. That old drive WILL be your backup. Just make SURE you
don't clone in the wrong direction! You need to clone FROM the old
drive to the new drive...FROM the secondary controller TO the primary
controller, for instance. Just watch the sizes when doing the
cloning. You'll be going FROM the smaller drive TO the larger drive.

This just a drag/drop operation (or cut/paste)? Lol, hope I'm not that much
of a spaz to not realize what direction the files'r heading. But you never
know with a newb....

Have a nice one...

You too. Happy New Year!

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

Gonna pass on that one.

 

[TD]

Thanks very much for the detailed response, Johns. (more below)

What I do ( I'm a pro ) is fairly simple, and will accomplish what you want.
I use PowerQuest Drive
Image 2002. What you do with that is install it on
another computer, and make 2 floppies that you need.
It will prompt you to do that. Then, you take your
new drive and make it the master drive ( c-drive ),
and slave your old drive to it.

Boot the computer

to the 1st floppy,

this would be the A drive? The roadblock I think I'll have is lack of DOS
skills.




and select the "clone" operation.

Now ( critical ), in this clone operation, go to the
advanced options, and tell that stupid floppy not to
check a darn thing !!!!!!!!!!!!! regards bad sectors,
files, etc. The program will run, and totally copy your
old drive to the new drive. Make sure your new drive
is right much bigger ( 160g is good ). If your hardware
has not changed, there's a good chance this will work
just fine. If it doesn't work, you haven't lost anything,
and it only takes a little while to set it up. I'm assuming
you have experience setting drive jumpers,

I can handle the jumpers, but...

and detecting
the drives in the BIOS.

How' this done?

If you don't have this experience,
lots of people ( kids ) do. Also, study that program.
It is a very good way to back up your new drive .. create
a D-drive, and then image the c-drive to the d-drive.
I recommend getting at least a 160 gig drive these days.
As for Win98. It is waaay past time for you to buy
WinXP SP2 and a good AV like McAfee. Something
else you might consider. Since you are limited for time,
there are guys like me out here who could do this
for you, and produce a rock solid system that would
give you no trouble.

I did that in the past. Had a pretty good guy, but he moved out of the area.
I'm a hands-on guy at heart and wanted to finally jump into this myself -- I
like the freedom that knowledge affords!



Your computer is out of date, and

a new one is not all that expensive these days. Plus
you get the OS ( WinXP Pro ) bundled with it, and
your working files, email, etc saved ... up and running
... and backed up in an image that is safe from viruses
and vandalism. Finally, a real simple way to copy
your working files to a fresh install, is to do a fresh
install on a new drive ... slave your old drive to it as
a d-drive, and copy the working files over as you
have time.

That definitely sounds like a cool way to go. It a longer way around the
block, but I'd rather do it this way, mostly as a learning experience.





Again I assume you know not to copy

executables, and OS files over ... just your docs,
favorites, email, etc. That takes a little knowledge, but
it works fine. Still ... here I am ... and I'm worth it !!!

It sounds like you are! And that's why I'm here!

Thanks again, Johns. Happy New Year!

TD

 

[Michael Cecil]

EVERY drive being used has an operating system on it! Some just have
more files than others, that's all. lol

No. Every drive usually has a file system on it. Only one drive (the one
you boot to) needs an operating system. However, there are several ways
to use drives even without a file system but that is far from common.

 

[J. S. Pack]

Wondered if any of you can offer assistance with my situation. I've got a
full hard drive and originally planned on backing up everything important on
it, then doing a clean wipe and fresh install. This would be a giant task,
given my busy schedule. So my wife suggested just switching it with a brand
new drive and doing the entire fresh install on that, which sounded good to
me.

Some info:
The system is an OEM Gateway, PIII-500 (from early1999), with an old STB
Velocity 4400 vid card and 384 MB of RAM (all 3 slots full). The optical
drives are (1) LG CD-RW, and (1) Matsushita DVD-ROM (along with floppy and
ZIP drives).

I've got one home system with WinXP Home on it, and would like the new hard
drive to have Win98 on it-- (I've got some software I still use that only
works on 98). And I've got my original Win98 disk available. I'm about to go
out and pick up an 80GB WD hd for the purpose. So...

Questions:

1. Can anyone link me to a detailed 'how-to' for this task?
2. After this is complete, will I be able to put my original drive back in
if I need something on it, and have my system recognize it? If not, what
would I need to do in that situation?
3. Or alternatively, should I back up my original hd first to be safe?

Thanks loads for any help on this...

TD

I would just get rid of all that adware and spyware, give your system a
good cleanup and optimization, and it will probably run about as good as it
ever did.

Disable any unneeded background apps w/ msconfig or other startup
manager. Windows Messenger is notorious from nearly the beginning.

Then see http://www.fixyourwindows.com/ and do all the
optimization steps there. He mentions blackviper's site, which has free
..reg files to turn off all those unneeded services running in the
background--highly recommended.

Turn off hibernation.

After you turn off system restore, use ERUNT on a
schedule for registry backups.

http://home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt

Finally, use XPlite to get rid of much bloat. I think there's a freeware
version.

Now that you've bought an extra HD (everybody needs one), use it as a
backup drive. Get a good imaging program like Acronis True Image or Ghost
9.0 to make images of your C: drive on your new D:. Then use a program like
SyncBack to make daily backups of your Documents and Settings/User.

As for Win98, just run that in a virtual machine. Get VMWare or Virtual PC
for the purpose. No need for any extra partitions and dual booting etc.

 

[Trent©]

Thanks, Trent. The main reasons for a new drive are that, first, the
original is absolutely full of spyware, adware, etc. (rendering it barely
useable), and-- backing up all my files will be too time consuming for me to
do it at the moment. So it made sense to just buy another drive and backup
the old as I get time. In another post on this thread, I mentioned some of
this. I ended up taking a chance and buying a 40 gig Maxtor last night,
concerned about the size issue. If it doesn't work on this sys, I'll use it
for another later. I'm sure it doesn't make sense to most people here to not
only use W98, but to do any work at all on such an old sys. Just thought it
would be a cheap way (aside from the time involved) to jump in and learn.
Gotta start somewhere.

I still sell a LOT of AT machines...3.2 to 10 gig drives...with Win98.
Put a good NIC in 'em...and max out the RAM...and they make an
excellent Internet/starter machine.

I even throw in a dot matrix printer...but they're gettin' hard to
find! lol

I've got an AMD K-5 that I built YEARS ago...that I've resold 5 times
now! lol Finally had to upgrade it to 98FE.

Good luck.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Trent©]

No. Every drive usually has a file system on it.

....which allows it to operate.

Only one drive (the one
you boot to) needs an operating system. However, there are several ways
to use drives even without a file system but that is far from common.

Just curious...

How do you use a drive without partitioning it?


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!