Moving Win95 to a new HD

There are several options but the best one I've found is called Drive Image from PowerQuest.  It's about US$50 but makes this a snap.  It's also a very handy backup/restore utility so it's usefulness continues after you've upgraded.  Recomended.

Hi Pete,

If you're really short on cash, I can tell you a way to transfer your complete windows95 to another disk free.
Of course, this process won't include the "goodies" DriveImage comes with, so JHance's answer should have precedence if $50 is not a problem to you :-)

Hi Terminus,

Yes, Terminus. Can you tell me how to do it without paying $50 buying the Drive Image?

Thanks,
Pete

Well, here is how to do it :

With your new HD formatted and partitioned, boot Windows95 and launch a DOS window.
Put yourself in the root directory of your current windows drive,
and type the following command :
WINDOWS\COMMAND\XCOPY32 *.* d:\*.* /S /E /K /H (if d: is your new HD, otherwise use the correzct letter).

This is necessary to copy the entire directory tree to the new disk : /H will copy hidden and system files, /S/E will copy subdirectories, including empty ones; also xcopy32 is necessary to copy long file names (xcopy will copy 8.3 filenames only).

Make your new HD bootable using the SYS command (SYS D:), then switch your HD's (changing slave/master jumpers if needed) and test if everything is ok. If anything as gone wrong, you can just switch your HD's and jumpers again to go back to the at start situation and correct it.

Hope this works fine for you ...

Terminus.

Thanks Terminus,

I tried the command you gave me. However, it said the wrong parameters. And I just can't find any help manual for it. Do you have any idea about it?

Pete: Terminus has a nice idea, but it won't work for many reasons. One of the most important being that Xcopy32 can't be run from a command line as it requires xcopy itself and must be run from withing Windows 95. (See question Q134772 in the MS Knowledge Base) If run from Windows 95, it won't copy any files currently in use by Windows 95 at the time. Most importantly, if the two hard drives are not indentical in size and parameters, Windows will not boot properly, if at all.

There is a way of doing this without buying drive copy or drive image though. When the question reopens, I'll post it for you. Let me know the size of your old drive as well as the new one.
Dennis

Thanks Dew,

My old HD is 3.4 GB and my new HD is 4.3 GB.

Joe

I'd like to agree Bud, but merely transferring files won't fly here, windows will boot and compare it's original data against what the Bios reports and won't match.

Pete, give it a shot, and if it doesn't work let us know. I have an idea that may help you. You are using the OSR2 version of Windows 95, yes?

Dennis

Oh, well I did leave out to sys.com the new HDD, then the bios info can be adjusted.

There's no way smeebud's answer is right. First, it isn't even a recursive copy, and I don't think it copies long filenames or hidden files either.

I would like to learn how to do this without a special program--it would be useful for me.

Well let's hear from Pete shall we?

1. Pin new HDD as slave
2. Let cmos autodetect
3. Fdisk
4. Format /s
5. Copy [? drive letter]*.*
6. Switch new to Master
====================
I have done this successfully ???times.

With all due respect, I can't figure out why smeebud's suggestion would work. I think you need to do

xcopy c: d: /e /r /h /k /a

(assuming the source disk is c: and the target is d:) in step 5.

Webb,

I doubt about it too.

Frankly Pete, Xcopy won't do it as it relies on 8.3 file name convention.

I will post the answer for you if you would like?
Dennis

Yeah Dew, what is the Solution then.

Okay Pete, but let me give you some background first on how I found this method. We were playing around with the idea of hot swapable hard drives for workstations people couldn't afford for them to be down for any appreciable length of time. While waitig for some special mirroring software, we were playing with some ideas and came across this one and it worked. I've layed ot out in the order in which we were able to repeat the process.

1. Make sure that you have a valid Windows 95 Startup disk. Make a new one if possible with a new floppy.

2. Leave your present hard drive as drive "C" and attach your new one as drive "D". Since there's less than a gigabyte difference in size between the drives, you won't have to worry about how Win95 interprets the descriptor byte on the new drive.

3. Fdisk the new drive, but for now you won't be able to make it your active "C" drive. After Fdisk, run format with the /S switch to transfer the system files. Now reboot the system.

4. Next, move the swap file out of the windows folder into the root of "C", but don't copy it as part of the next procedure. Windows 95 will recreate the Swap file for you on the first restart after the copy procedure is complete.

5. Open Windows Explorer and using the View option, change the options so that all files are shown including hidden files. Now begin copying all of the files, starting with those in the root of your "C" drive and then with each full folder to the "D" drive. eg: transfer the files in the root the using the drag and drop feature drag and copy each folder over to "D". Let it overwrite the files on "D". Remember, don't move files, just copy them!

6. Now, once all of the files have been copies successfully, reboot the system to the floppy disk. Run Fdisk and change the active partition drive letter on the new drive to "C". Once this is complete, shut the system down and recable the system so that the new "C" is now on the first IDE Bus and "D" is on the secondary.

Since all of this is non-destructive you can always go back if there's a prolblem and now you should now be able to reboot your system to the new drive.

Let me know how you make out!
Dennis

Pete,

A better solution comes with Seagate drives. Their install software comes with a "Diskcopy" program that copies everything intact.

Cumbo

Cumbo, how do you know it's better if you haven't tried it? And this is free to boot!

Dew,

When I stated better I meant that it is a "one step" procedure. Not
better at copying perhaps. It is free with a Seagate drive.

Cumbo