OK, please bear with me here, because at home I’ve always worked with Macintoshes, and at the office we have PC experts that do all the Windows stuff.
My wife’s PC: IBM Aptia running Windows 98. One 3.5" floppy, one CD-Rom drive, two hard drives (C: and D:).
Originally she only had one hard drive (C:). The hard drive started making funny noises (but we are still able to boot up from it and read data from it), so I volunteered to fix it for her (since I work in the IS field I’m expected to be able to handle any computer problem).
I run down to our local store and buy a new hard drive (IDE drive with a bigger capacity than the original one). The techs at the store install it for me as a slave drive (D:) connected to the master drive (C:). So here’s my plan:
[ol][li]I copy everything over from the C: drive to the D: drive, using the simple “select and drag across” approach.[/li][li]I open the case and remove the C: drive.[/li][li]I boot up using the D: drive, which, since I have removed the C: drive, will automatically turn into the C: drive.[/ol][/li]Voilà! Everyone’s happy.
I did mention before that my experience with Windows is scant, but what little experience I do have is telling me that there’s no way it’s going to be as simple as I think it is, and that the steps outlined above are woefully inadequate.
Any help please? Does anyone know of a good PC forum (preferably using uBB or vBulletin, since I’m familiar with this format)?
You’ll need to set the D: drive’s jumper to make it the master and set the C: drive’s jumper to make it the slave. Also reverse their position on the data cable (ribbon cable that plugs into the motherboard.
Then, install Win98 on the new (formerly D: now C: ) drive. I’m thinking you might want to disconnect the old drive while you do that. With Win98 installed on the new drive, turn it off, reconnect the old drive as the slave and proceed with your plan.
Instead of “drag and select” command which will possibly bail when it tries to copy the windows active swap files you would be better off dropping to DOS while in windows (ie “protected mode” DOS) . Go to, or point to (ie path = c:\windows\command) the c:\windows\command directory and use the following command line parameters:
xcopy32^ c:^ d:^ /e^ /c^ /f^ /h^ /r ^ /k ^ /y
^ = a line space (SMDB mnessage board does not show line spaces well)
This will effectively clone C: to D:
Before you do this make a bootable floppy and also put fdisk.exe on it. fdisk.exe is located in the c:\windows\command directory.
Unless the “cable select” option is supported in both the drive and BIOS and the drives are set to use cable select, after copying you will need to set the drive jumpers to re-assign the old D: / new C: drive as a master or a stand alone drive a asnd maker the same change to the old C: /new D: drive if it is staying the system.
After cloning C to D and re-setting the disk BIOS parameters and setting the master/slave drive jumpers to make D: the C: master (or stand alone), boot with the aforesaid bootable floppy in the floppy drive. Run fdisk.exe and if the new C: drive partition is not active make it active.
Your prior D: will now boot and be recognized as C:.
Before you do the XCOPY, you should run “SYS C: D:” to make sure the new drive has the boot files in the right place. If that reports an error, you’ll have to resort to “FORMAT D: /S”
Then take the /y switch off the xcopy so you can tell it to not overwrite those files.
contary to popular belief the jumper setting on the drive does not set which drive is booted too. That setting is in the Fdisk command for which is the active partition. You can switch the jumper all you want, it will always boot to the HDD that is active.
Arnold Winkelried, you’re supposed to use the manual & software to do that it comes with the new HD or manf’s web site.
Plus, you completely forgot the cmos bios part of it & all the registry references for your programs could be confused.
Not to mention you have it backwards, when the tech install the new one, its the master, the old one is slave, not the other way around. Then use the software that comes with the HD to copy the old to the new.
My original HD had Win95 on it. I bought a bigger drive, set it as the master, and set the old drive as the slave. After removing power to the old drive, I loaded Win98 on the new drive. I then plugged the power back into the old drive, and the system came up fine under Win98. I am even able to run programs that are still on the old drive.
In case my new drive failed, I wanted to still be able to have a working disk available. If I pull the power from the new drive, set the old drive to be the master again, I can (and have been able to) boot up in Win95 again. The jumper settings are determining what my boot drive is, and I never had to use fdisk.
I appericate your example, but that is contary to all that myself and my fellow techs have been taught. I dont understand how that would cause the change. The only other way to change the boot order is in the BIOS if you have the ability to set the order in which the drives can be booted to.
The jumpers on the HDD’s set the recongition for the HDD controllers on the motherboard. they should not have anything to do with the boot order or which drive is booted to
I think he is removing power from the primary partition drive to boot from the other.
(The best way to suck up to a moderator is a smart alec sig, but don’t forget to speak of him in the third person in his own thread.)
beatle, your suggestion (re-installing the OS and then the applications) is what I usually do when I upgrade the OS on my Macintosh, but my wife would have to find all of her software disks to do that and I don’t think she has them all (she’s never been able to show me the Windows 98 CD).
carnivorousplant, the drive actually comes with software to make a complete “disk image” copy. (More on that below).
astro, thank you for the very complete explanations. Your procedure seems lengthy and involved, and therefore probably correct.
vd, thank you also for your addition to astro’s procedure.
handy, your suggestion to refer to the manual and software coming with the hard drive is very appropriate. I thought there was no manual but digging in the box I found a single sheet of paper that is the drive “manual”. (I will expound on that below.) I did send an e-mail to the drive manufacturer’s technical support but I haven’t heard back.
carnivorousplant, I believe both drives are on the same IDE controller with the CD-rom drive being by itself on another IDE controller.
OK, following handy’s suggestion, I found the hard drive “manual” and, after reading the e-mails above, inspired in particular by astro’s description, I’m going to try the following steps over the week-end.
The vendor told me he had installed the new drive as a slave and not a master (so handy my original statement should be correct, and the new drive is the slave).
The drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax™ Hard Drive and comes with a floppy that can be used for booting up. The instructions show the jumper positions for a Master drive, a Slave drive, a Cable Select drive.
So here’s my plan:
[ol][li]Copy the data from C: to the new D: using the MaxBlast Plus software, which has an option to create a complete image of the existing drive to the new drive.[/li][li]Open the case, remove the C: drive, change the Drive Jumpers to make the new drive a Master drive.[/li][li]Turn the system on, run the SETUP (BIOS) program, choose the device position where the Maxtor drive will be installed (Primary Master) and select the “Auto Detect” option. The system should now boot. - This procedure is what the drive “manual” says on how to install your drive.[/ol][/li]That should be it, right? The drive “manual” says «after running SETUP boot to the MaxBlast™ Plus diskette and use the software to partition and format the drive», but I shouldn’t need to do that since the drive is already formatted.
Do I really need the bootable floppy with “fdisk.exe” that was mentioned by astro?
Thank you again everyone for your help. Your explanations have helped me understand what the hard drive’s instruction sheet was saying. Please correct me if I am wrong in any of the assumptions or statements in this post.
“That should be it, right? The drive “manual” says «after running SETUP boot to the MaxBlast™
Plus diskette and use the software to partition and format the drive», but I shouldn’t need to do
that since the drive is already formatted.”
Yeah, looks okay so far. I really don’t like that Blast software very much, but youll have to make do. I would suggest using it even if the drive is already formatted because it formats, makes it bootable & does a copy all in one procedure.
Before doing anything, make one or two w98 bootdisks in case the Blast software sucks. YOu also MUST select to clear NVRAM in the Bios on Boot, if it has it, otherwise it won’t see the change you make later.
I have a feeling youll have to run W98 setup from the cd later anyway.
If the drive is set in the Bios to Autodetect then you don’t even have to go into the BIOS to tell it that your C drive is different. By using the Max Blast software and copying the data over you won’t have any problems, but your wife should find her disks incase she ever needs to do a fresh install due to virus attacks or hardware failure
“If the drive is set in the Bios to Autodetect then you don’t even have to go into the BIOS to tell it that your C drive is different.”
No, you need to get into the bios to reset the nvram & make sure the HD specs are correct.
After doing a full copy, you might have to do a scanreg /restore on the new drive.
