Transferring existing hard drives to new computer

[Ray K]

I'm planning to build a new computer, mainly to get higher speed from a
faster processor/mobo. Can I simply transfer the existing two hard
drives to the new computer? The drives are both 7200 rpm; one is an IBM
40GB, partitioned as 20/10/10,(c:, e:, f and a Maxtor 40GB,
partitioned as 20/20 (d:, g. The total capacity is adequate for my needs.

I don't want to change operating systems (W98) or go through the chore
of reloading all my existing stuff onto a new drive in the new computer.

I will then add a new hard drive to the old computer and give it to
someone with rather simple needs.

Thanks.

 

[philo]

I'm planning to build a new computer, mainly to get higher speed from a
faster processor/mobo. Can I simply transfer the existing two hard
drives to the new computer? The drives are both 7200 rpm; one is an IBM
40GB, partitioned as 20/10/10,(c:, e:, f and a Maxtor 40GB,
partitioned as 20/20 (d:, g. The total capacity is adequate for my needs.

I don't want to change operating systems (W98) or go through the chore
of reloading all my existing stuff onto a new drive in the new computer.

I will then add a new hard drive to the old computer and give it to
someone with rather simple needs.

Thanks.

win98 has a reasonably good chance of reconfiguring itslef...
for best results you will probably want to uninstall
as much as the hardware as you can ...in the control panel...
before your shut down your old machine for the last time.

it's also a good idea to have the win98 cab files
on the harddrive so that you can install devices even before
the cdrom is detected


also, if you end up with a non-bootable system
you can always install windows back over itself

just rename win.com then install windows
back in the original folder (usually just C:\windows )

 

[DaveW]

IF you change the motherboard that has been used with a given loaded Windows
OS, as you are planning to do, then you MUST reload the OS freshly with the
new motherboard when you install the new harddrive. Otherwise you will get
ongoing nasty Registry errors and data corruption.

 

[Mike Walsh]

Before you do the switch use device manager to remove any devices that will not be present in the new computer, especially video (default VGA will be used until the proper video driver is installed). When you boot with the new motherboard for the first time windows will probably recognize and automatically install new drivers for many devices e.g. IDE and COM ports.

 

[Ray K]

IF you change the motherboard that has been used with a given loaded Windows
OS, as you are planning to do, then you MUST reload the OS freshly with the
new motherboard when you install the new harddrive. Otherwise you will get
ongoing nasty Registry errors and data corruption.

Thanks, Dave, for alerting me to this pitfall. Things are never as
simple as I hoped for.

Ray

 

[Ray K]

Thanks, philo, for the great tips. Any preferred folder for storing the
cab files?

Ray

 

[kony]

Thanks, philo, for the great tips. Any preferred folder for storing the
cab files?

Ray

It's not necessary to uninstall hardware, but it may help
keep the registry cleaner, and in particular any
hardware-related entries in Add/Remove Programs ought to be
removed. If you forget to do any of this before shutting
down old configuration for the last time, just boot to safe
mode the first boot with the new hardware.

As for the cab files, just copy the Win98 folder from the
cdrom to a partition on the hard drive. Generally I advise
doing that first thing before even installing windows, as it
goes much faster and windows thereafter remembers where the
files are.

 

[kony]

Thanks, Dave, for alerting me to this pitfall. Things are never as
simple as I hoped for.

That is DaveW's generic canned response. Over and over
again we've pointed out that it's possible but he never
learns.

Win98 is easier than Win2K or XP to plug-n-play to a new
system, it's ALWAYS possible to transfer to any new system
that would run (win98 at all). In fact I have a 100%
success rate transferring Win98 from ANY system to a new
one, over several years of doing so.

There are a few potential snags like if the motherboard had
integrated audio but the motherboard manufacturer doesn't
provide a win98 driver, so in that case one can get the
driver from the respective chipset manufacturer instead,
which is often the better source for the driver regardless
of whether the motherboard manufacturer provided one, as the
motherboard manufacturer's drivers for older operating
systems may be quite old driver versions.

One thing to keep in mind is that as Win98 detects hardware,
during the first pass it will assign generic drivers to
hardware. Later it will attempt to use the proper drivers
and in some cases will find conflicts. To resolve these one
should go into Device Manager and wherever there are dual
entries for a device, one of them having a yellow
exclaimation mark, delete the "other" entry, the one without
the exclaimation mark. When in doubt, delete both... the
correct one will be redetected. IIRC, that applies to
keyboard, video, DMA... possibly others. If ever the system
won't boot all the way to the desktop, simply boot to safe
mode once to resolve any conflict, checking Device Manager
and what's loading at startup (generally it's just as easy
to temporarily disable anything loading at startup via
MSCONFIG until after the replug-n-playing is finished.