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ripley02
02-17-2003, 09:13 PM
i'm scared i'll mess something up and lose everything on my primary hd. i have several q's.
1.would it be recommended to make a backup of my existing hd and how would i do this?
2. if i lose everything on my existing hd i dont have the cd for win 98 since i bought the pc used but i have a copy of 98SE that i've downloaded off kazaa. how would i burn that to a cdr to use that as the setup?

Sneepboy
02-17-2003, 09:24 PM
Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 15:13
i'm scared i'll mess something up and lose everything on my primary hd. i have several q's.
1.would it be recommended to make a backup of my existing hd and how would i do this?
2. if i lose everything on my existing hd i dont have the cd for win 98 since i bought the pc used but i have a copy of 98SE that i've downloaded off kazaa. how would i burn that to a cdr to use that as the setup?
Man, you have it easy with 98. Im on XP & cant do this anymore. Get (download) Drive Copy & partition Magic. Drive copy the old one to the new one and use partition magic to open that partition to its full size. You dont even have to format the new one & probably dont even have to fdisk it. Once you are done, youll say, "Thats it? Cool."

*Note - Drive copy runs from a floppy out of windows. (You can't copy some windows system files if they are in use at the time).
I suggest having both hard drives set as masters & using a seperate cable for each. This helps me avoid some confusion.


Does anyone know how to get XP to boot after I do this? Im still experimenting with that.

TRshady
02-17-2003, 09:27 PM
You should be fine just adding a new hdd as slave, i did no problems. Its true, FAT32 systems do have it easy when it comes to formatting etc. Anyone know how to format an nfts file system hard-drive?

ripley02
02-17-2003, 09:28 PM
i guess i shoulda been clearer in the beginning but will that still work if the 2nd HD was used on my older PC

Sneepboy
02-17-2003, 09:33 PM
Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 15:28
i guess i shoulda been clearer in the beginning but will that still work if the 2nd HD was used on my older PC
Are you saying you just want to add the hard drive as a slave or as an extra drive?
If thats it, go forth & conquer! No prob. unless you spill a 40 oz. in there.

Ynhockey
02-17-2003, 09:34 PM
Well, I did what you're now about to do (same circumstances) and it worked just fine. Assuming you have a CDRom and a CDRW, you should make a HD master and a CDR slave for both, or vice versa. In fact, you can play around until you get it right 'cause sometimes problems DO happen (and before doing anything, make sure that you understand how to edit what's Master/Slave in BIOS). But will the data on one hard disk be deleted ? No, that isn't possible as far as I know (unless you physically damage the hard drive). However, it can happen that you will lose some important files that will make your OS stop functioning, so you can either back up your whole OS to a different partition, or you can simply move the Win98 installation file to the different partition and then install. Oh and just in case, make a system disk with CDRom support (I think you need to copy the BTCDROM file for that, but not sure - maybe someone else can answer this).

Hope that helped :)

ripley02
02-17-2003, 09:34 PM
hey Sneep i take it from your sig and showing a texas state flag you are a fellow texan. what part? i'm in Lubbock, west texas area.

Sneepboy
02-17-2003, 09:43 PM
Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 15:34
hey Sneep i take it from your sig and showing a texas state flag you are a fellow texan. what part? i'm in Lubbock, west texas area.
A Red Raider? I am a North Dallas K-Liter! Yahooooooooooooooooooo!


TEXAS - A whole other country!

:D

ripley02
02-17-2003, 09:58 PM
how cool!! thanks a lot for everyones input. i'll try this later tonite and see how this goes.

MotherwellFC
02-17-2003, 10:46 PM
Originally posted by TRshady@17 February 2003 - 22:27
You should be fine just adding a new hdd as slave, i did no problems. Its true, FAT32 systems do have it easy when it comes to formatting etc. Anyone know how to format an nfts file system hard-drive?
Start in safe mode with command,FORMAT C:

Nightwolf
02-17-2003, 11:52 PM
The only potential problem I see is if the drive from your old computer is not FAT32 (depending on what OS you had on that one). If that's the case you might need to run Win98's FAT32 conversion utility. I would also recommend you go into you BIOS settings on your old comp and write down all the info about this drive before you remove it, in case your other system's BIOS doesn't auto-detect it right. Other than that it should be a piece of cake, as long as you change jumpers to make it the Slave on your primary IDE port.

Sneepboy
02-18-2003, 12:14 AM
Originally posted by Nightwolf^.`.^@17 February 2003 - 17:52
I would also recommend you go into you BIOS settings on your old comp and write down all the info about this drive before you remove it, in case your other system's BIOS doesn't auto-detect it right.
A nice Fdisk & reformat on the old drive will take care of anything if you dont know what it was before but Im sure you do.

@Nightwolf^.`.^

Even better - if you have one: I have used a camcorder in the past to record each screen of the bios. B)

ripley02
02-18-2003, 01:03 AM
ok i need a little help.
i'm at home now and was ready to install the nd HD but there are only IDE ports on my pc one of which is occupied by the original hd and the other by my cd burner. am i SOL or is there another way around this?

Nightwolf
02-18-2003, 01:30 AM
Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 20:03
ok i need a little help.
there are only  IDE ports on my pc one of which is occupied by the original hd and the other by my cd burner. am i SOL or is there another way around this?
Each IDE cable should have two plugs on it. You should have the plug at the far end plugged into your first HD, and the one near the middle of the cable plugged into your second HD. Like I said before, make sure you set the jumpers to Slave.

ripley02
02-18-2003, 01:44 AM
hey thanks Nightwolf! i feel like a moron!! i was almost beting myself up over this.

PcH
02-18-2003, 01:46 AM
ripley02, use Nero Burning ROM to burn Win98SE to a CD-R. Backup your entire hard drive with Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003.

ShareDaddy
02-18-2003, 02:16 AM
Originally posted by TRshady@17 February 2003 - 16:27
You should be fine just adding a new hdd as slave, i did no problems. Its true, FAT32 systems do have it easy when it comes to formatting etc. Anyone know how to format an nfts file system hard-drive?
I did just that recently, it was not extremely difficult, however it was a little more involved than the paperwork that came with the hard drive suggested. I ended up having to use the XP disc to partition the new hard drive (just made a single full size partition) once that was done the OS assigned a drive letter. I restarted the PC and simply went to windows explorer and clicked on the newly partitioned hard drive and it asked me if I wanted to format it, I said sure and bam, 20 seconds later (120 Gb) I had a fully functioning beautiful NTFS second hard drive as a slave.

Nightwolf
02-18-2003, 02:41 AM
Originally posted by ripley02@17 February 2003 - 20:44
hey thanks Nightwolf!
No problem, Ripley. Let me know how it turns out. And like others here have said, it's always a good idea to at least back-up your most important files first. I'm sure everything will be fine, though.

Supernatural
02-18-2003, 02:08 PM
Yup, I've done this many time. Installing extra drive are pretty much plug and play. Windows will detect the drive. After it installs necessary drivers, right click the drive in My Computer, Format, and you are done. :)

ripley02
02-18-2003, 03:30 PM
well this is what happened. tell me if i did something wrong. when i opened up the new case i noticed the ide cable on my primary HD has only 2 connectors, 1 for the HD and the other going into the board. so then i opened up the old pc and it had the 2 main IDE connectors but then one in the middle of the cable. so i took both HD's and decided to use the ide cable from the 2nd HD since it had the extra connector. i plugged the main HD into one end of the IDE cable and the 2nd HD into the IDE connector in the middle and then finally the other end going into the board. i made sure all jumpers were set properly since the 2nd was goint to be slave and made sure connections were solid. booted up and get black screen : operating system not found. i cant go any further so i have to turn off and reinstall the main HD. i know i messed up but can someone point out to me where?

Sneepboy
02-18-2003, 04:58 PM
Originally posted by ripley02@18 February 2003 - 09:30
well this is what happened. tell me if i did something wrong. when i opened up the new case i noticed the ide cable on my primary HD has only 2 connectors, 1 for the HD and the other going into the board. so then i opened up the old pc and it had the 2 main IDE connectors but then one in the middle of the cable. so i took both HD's and decided to use the ide cable from the 2nd HD since it had the extra connector. i plugged the main HD into one end of the IDE cable and the 2nd HD into the IDE connector in the middle and then finally the other end going into the board. i made sure all jumpers were set properly since the 2nd was goint to be slave and made sure connections were solid. booted up and get black screen : operating system not found. i cant go any further so i have to turn off and reinstall the main HD. i know i messed up but can someone point out to me where?
Make sure your bios is set to auto-detect hard drives.

Does your computer start using your Main hard drive on the cable with 2 IDE connectors and the extra hard drive not connected?

If yes, then turn off & connect the extra HD & then restart. What happens then?

If no, maybe it is the cable.

Also, check the jumpers on the hard drives again. I tend to think that is the most likely problem.

Write back with your progress.

Later

Nightwolf
02-18-2003, 06:37 PM
Like Sneepboy said, try that old cable with just your main HD, and make sure you have the correct end plugged into the motherboard (it should only go one way). Also make sure you have it pushed in all the way, sometimes they're really tight. If it still doesn't work, you might need to buy a newer EIDE cable.