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alanman

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HOW TO INSTALL A BACKUP DUPLICATE HARD DISK

I recently lost the boot record and had to re-install WIN98 and ALL files and programs for many hours! I would like to make an exact duplicate of my Western Digial Caviar 2.5gig HD to another HD. Then if there is a crash I can just make the backup drive the master and boot up with the same configuration.
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alanman

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Alan,

   Have you tried selecting everything on your Master Drive (WD-caviar) and copying it to the other harddisk?  I think this will create an exact copy of your C drive to the slave drive.
You need to install your primay hard drive and jummper it as "MASTER" look in the documentation that came with it or look on the hard drive itself. Secondly you need to configure (these are physical jumper settings) the new hard drive as SLAVE again read the docs or look in the hard drive itself. Put both drives on the same IDE controller card (I assume it is IDE - I have 2 Western digitals myself!). When you boot your system read the on screen display (you may need to press "PAUSE" if it goes by too quickly, it should say hit Delete or press F1 or similar to run setup. Press the corresponding key to get into setup. you then need to go to HARD DRIVE utility, most new PC's can autodetect what hard drives you have. Make sure your PC sees both. once you have the hard drives set up SAVE and EXIT, this will reboot. once you are in windows got to explorer and click on the C:\ icon and drag it to the D:\ icon and release. this will copy your master to your slave. One more thing if you are running two hard drives you will need to run your CD Rom from a or the secondary IDE controller - there you must set the CD ROM as MASTER if it is to run on the second controller by itself.
Good Luck
TAUA
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I know how to install a 2nd drive. The problem is copying ALL FILES on the master drive. I think dragging does NOT copy all files. I think hidden files or system files get left behind?
Thanks for the answer. CD-ROM is a SCSI.
If you select to show all files in explorer, incl. hidden and system, draggig will do the trick.
Though i'm not sure about files being in use, e.g. win.com, explorer.exe
This is not all that bad though, make a win98 bootdisk (get back if you don't know how)
and put fdisk.exe and format.com on it.
Next time your bootrecord goes down the drain, boot from the disk and type fdisk /mbr
If you want to put the backup back after a total crash, boot from the disk, fdisk and format the drive, install win98 minimum (make sure you have cdrom drivers ready, or boot from cd if your system allows it) , start win98, drag the whole thing back and reboot

That should do it, or did i forget something? ;)

For the copying part, xcopy32 has some nice switches, check them out, from a dos box type xcopy32 /?

Good Luck!
>I can just make the backup drive the master and boot up with the same configuration.

ooops, sorry.

copy like above, make bootdisk, change drives around (master->slave etc), boot from Floppy, do a sys c:, changes drives back (check to see if it boots first though ;) )

Good Luck!
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sverre

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If it´s very important with two disk the best solution must be mirrored disks!

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Thanks to all for your help! Got disk up and running again after 17 hours of work. WIN98 is garbage! If MS had a decent competitor, they would be OUT of business. Can you imagine a car that worked most of the time? I will copy disk using Drive Copy or try Ghost. Thanks again!
--Alan
Any folks with thoughts on this subject can E-mail me at ALANM100@aol.com
> I will copy disk using Drive Copy or try Ghost

Why accept an answer you haven't tried beats me......