Harddisk Upgrade:
How to migrate Windows 95/98 to the new drive
by Jan Steunebrink
Last updated on July 3, 2000
The problem
In the DOS / Win 3.x days, upgrading the harddisk used to be straightforward.
Apart from a few hidden files, Xcopy would do a nice job of copying all the files and subdirectories to the new drive.
Now with Windows 95/98, we have a lot more to worry about; hidden and system files, hidden and system directories, special file attributes, and Long File Names!
There is a lot of information on the net how to solve this.
This page gives some guidance to the personal user on the various solutions that are possible.
Solution 1.
I myself used this method successfully several times.
It uses the Win95/98 version of Xcopy (XCOPY32).
Peter den Haan has written an excellent guide that takes you step by step through this job.
See his Installing a drive and Copying Windows95 page.
This solution works equally well with Windows 98(SE).
Solution 2.
This is Microsoft's solution. They use Microsoft Backup as supplied with Windows 95/98.
This is a nice option if you have a tape drive. If you don't, and you have enough space left on your old drive, you can use it to store the backup instead.
Both methods are extensively described in Knowledge Base article Q166172:
Duplicating Windows 95/98 Installation to a New Hard Disk.
This procedure works also with Windows 98SE.
Solution 3.
This third and last solution involves a number of commercial products. These should give you a safe and hassle free migration to the new drive.
- If you have Partition Commander from V Communications, you can "Copy" the Windows 95/98 partition to the new drive.
- If you have Partition Magic 3.0 or later from PowerQuest, also use the "Copy" option when you setup the new drive, or use their separate
DriveCopy program.
- Norton Ghost 2000 Personal Edition is another solution. This Disk cloning package goes beyond a "simple" drive copy.
- Drive Backup 2000 from Paragon, which is essentially an allround backup package.
Any comments? Please send a message to J.Steunebrink@net.HCC.nl
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