What are the steps to change C: and D: so system is on D: ?

Factual Questions
1

What are the steps to change C: and D: so system is on D: ?

What happened is that C: is 2gig. It got full, so I got a huge drive D: 22gig.

Now C: is full and D: has 5gig used.

How do I get the system to D: so I can boot off of it and remove the C: drive? (I want to give it to my eldest as a hand-me-down.)

I hope I don’t have to reinstall all the software!

I have the Windows 98 CD, but all the other applications were downloads, and I could never get them all set up again.
I’m hoping there’s a way to move them over after I get a system on d: ? :confused:

Thanks (fingers crossed)

2

To get the system to boot off of the D: you would have to install an operating system on the D:

You can attempt to copy everything to the d:

(in dos, at the c: – copy . /a d:)

I wouldnt recommend this, in my experience it fails.

your computer company should have sent you copies of the software on your system. Who did you get it from?

if you do install an OS on the D: it would not know the location of any of the programs w/o them being installed in that operating system

Also – to get the system to allow you to install the second OS you would need to go into FDISK and set which partition is active as the primary boot partition

3

Get a copy of Norton Ghost. I’ve never used it, personally, but it’s supposed to be able to clone a drive, allowing you to transfer the entire contents to another drive. that would enable you to turn D: into the bood drive C:.

4

“What are the steps to change C: and D: so system is on D: ?”

That’s no simple task.

First of all, you have to remember that the registry sees all the programs on C already & if you put them on D, it won’t be able to find them. Same with D.

You could make D the master, which makes it C, put ONLY it in, install Windows on it & drop the other HD in later but you’re going to have a mess.

5

How do I get the system to D: so I can boot off of it and remove the C: drive? (I want to give it to my eldest as a hand-me-down.)

OK, not exactly what you want to hear, but it will be your best option. It’s really not that difficult, but you must be careful, so read on…

I’m not familiar with Ghost, but it’s an option. However, since you already have a Windows 98 CD (full CD I hope, and not a restore disk from the manufacturer), your best bet would be to treat D: as a blank drive and load Windows onto it. You would lose whatever is on D: now, unless you have some way of backing up any data or work files, or any original downloaded software. Also remember that either way you will need to switch your jumper settings on the drives. Right now, C: is jumpered to be your master drive, and D: is your slave drive. I hope you have documentation! (though you could find it on the Web) However, if both drives are by the same manufacturer, the necessary jumper settings for master or slave would likely be the same, so you could just switch the settings. Always be careful of static electricity. If you can do this work in a room without carpeting, do so. Make sure to touch a part of the metal chassis before touching anything electronic.

Check your current CMOS settings for your drives. Most systems will allow you to print out your configuration for all settings - IRQs, options, and most importantly, hard drive info such as number of heads, cylinders. Make sure you record this information before doing anything to your system! Take note if your system will set your hard drive settings automatically. If so, then it will recognize the current D: drive after you switch it to C:. If not, you can enter your settings manually.

Even if you could save your software on D:, you would still need to re-install it. The programs that are running on both the C: and D: drives are part of the registry for the version of Windows that’s currently on your C: drive (boot drive). In order for them to work, they will need to be installed under the version of Windows that will be installed on D:. Re-installing software isn’t that difficult, as long as you backup any work (.doc files, projects, etc). If you have a CD writer, you can back your stuff up to CD-RW or CD-R. If you include the original downloaded files, just copy them back over after loading Windows. You may just want to download most or all of your stuff, since newer versions would be available.

I’m not sure, but I think if you use Ghost, it will overwrite some or all of what’s on D: now, and replace it with the contents of C:. You’ll have to look into that, or maybe someone else here can answer that.

I have the Windows 98 CD, but all the other applications were downloads, and I could never get them all set up again.
I’m hoping there’s a way to move them over after I get a system on d: ? :confused:

After switching your jumpers, unplug the power cable from the current C:. Now that the current D: is jumpered to be the master drive, boot off of your Windows CD and install. If you like the way your icon fonts, window colors, and all that stuff are now, record all your settings (right click desktop, choose properties, appearance tab) so you can restore them after loading Windows.

Once you are running on the D: drive, shut down, connect your power cable to your 2GB slave drive, and start the system. Windows should now recognize this as a D: drive, even though it has boot information on it. You can probably still run programs that are on there (I did this same thing 6 months ago). You can then move any software over that you want to keep, but remember, if they are applications, you’ll need to reload them after removing the 2GB drive.

If you’re not completely familiar with what you need to do, I would strongly suggest you search the internet for any of the many sites out there which will explain what you need to do, probably clearer than I have here! If I find some, I’ll post them later. The whole process isn’t that difficult, but there’s some work involved. Again, maybe Ghost will work for you, but as flaky as Windows is, and especially if your 2GB drive has been running for a couple years or more, you would be better off with a fresh install. If your system has a habit of locking up on you at certain times (assuming no hardware problems - memory in particular), you really should reload Windows instead of trying to clone your current version. You’ll only copy the problem over, and will likely become worse.

If any of this is helpful, and/or you run into a problem, you can always e-mail me if you’d like. Good luck!

6

Windows does not care which HDD is master or slave, it all depends on what you Fdisk to the primary active partition. – simply moving the master or slave jumpers will make no change

7

If I wanted to install a tankless toilet at home, would it work? Or is there some hidden tank like on the roof or something? Do you need super water pressure?

8

:eek: Oh no! That was supposed to be a new thread.

9

Norton Ghost is a good solution for a bare drive but I don’t know if it can work with a destination drive that already has data on it. Does anybody know whether it can handle that situation?

Just copying the files from C: to D: is NOT a viable solution. There’s no really easy way to do this otherwise but here’s what I think about is the easiest you’ll find using basic Windows features.

Step 1 - If you don’t already have it installed, install the Windows Backup program (Settings -> Control Panel -> Add/Remove Programs -> Windows Setup). It’s fairly small but has to go on the C: drive so you may need to move some other file to make room.

Step 2 - Start the backup program. If you don’t have a regular backup medium like a tape drive, it’ll complain when you first start it but it will still run. Select the entire C: drive to be backed up. For Destination, select the D: drive and provide a file name. Then let 'er rip. It’ll probably take an hour or so to do the full backup.

Step 3 - In the backup program, now select the Restore option and pick the backup file you just created. Among the restore options, select Alternate Destination and point it to the D: drive. Then let 'er tip again. This’ll probably take another hour or so. At the end of this operation, you’ll have a (nearly) perfect copy of the C: drive on D: drive. There are always a few files that don’t backup properly like logs that are constantly being written to but they won’t cause any trouble.

Step 4 - Open a DOS window and type in “SYS D:”. This makes the D: drive bootable.

Step 5 - Power down, remove the drives and adjust the jumpering on the big drive as described in previous posts.
Reboot.

Now you can delete the backup file that was created in Step 2.

10

I’d like to restate, sense it seems to have not been noticed in the previous posts

rejumpering the HDD will not set which HDD is booted to. You have to go into FDISK and set which is the active primary partition
carry on…

11

Here is how you can easily do what you wish without re-installing anything.

1: But a copy of “Partition Magic”

2: Use PM to break you current “D” drive into two partitions. Make the first partition 16 gigs and your second partition 6 gigs. You will now have “D” and “E” on the second drive.

3: Use the following switches in DOS protected mode (ie running DOS under Windows). This procedure will clone all info on one one drive to another.

4: xcopy32 D:\ E:\ /e /c /f /h /r /k /y
This will copy all files on “D” to E". Verify all files have been copied to “E”

5: Format D: /s
This clears out “D” and preps it for the next step

6: xcopy32 C:\ D:\ /e /c /f /h /r /k /y
This will copy all “C” files to “D”

7: Make a bootable floopy with fdisk.exe on it

8: Disconnect “C” and make “D” your boot drive. If necessary reconfig bios drive ID parameters with BIOS setup.

9: Boot with floppy and run fdisk. Make old “D” now “C” partiton “active”.

You are done. Your old “D” is now “C” and your “D” files are in the “E” partition section of the drive.

12

Although the message board software makes it look a bit like the previous switches all run into each other they are spaces between the letters. ie

xcopy32 ^ c:^ d:^ /e ^ /c ^ /f ^ /h ^ /r ^ /k ^ /y

13

astro, he just bought a 20 gig drive & as you know, HD’s come with software to copy perfectly. If not, the manf site has the software & instructions. It’s not necessary to use xcopy.

Some even have programs to copy just those programs you want & change the registry to reflect it.