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FREE alternative to Ghost for emergency backup of a dying Win98 HD incase it dies before I can get a replacement?
The hard drive in my Windows 98SE computer is failing. It's not always
readable when I turn on the computer and makes some odd clicking noises, yet turning the computer off, and then on again seems to fix the problem, although last time it took 3 tries. I intend to replace the HD ASAP, however, it may take some time as I don't think the computer can handle an IDE HD larger than 120-some gigabytes. I fear the HD will crash before I can obtain a replacement. If I had the software we have at work, I'd use Symatic Ghost to make an image of my old computer's HD onto my new computer. However, I don't own a copy of Ghost. Nor can I locate the restore CD with the OEM copy of Win98 and the Dell's network drivers. I have a Windows Vista computer with enough free disk space to back up the entire hard drive to that computer. I'm have Virtual PC with Windows XP Pro available on that same Vista computer. I've created a network share of my entire hard drive and a new virtual drive and used "XCOPY z: e: /d /h /e /f /g /k /o /EXCLUDE:nocp.txt" to copy everything but win386.swp and parent.lock after formatting the virtual drive to boot windows 98 (I used a win98 boot disk in virtual pc). However, I realized that I don't have any way of setting up a network connection to get the OS back onto the new drive. I have a backup, but nothing else. Any suggestions on what to do without a working Windows 98 install CD? I might have a copy of Windows 95 that still works, but my XP pro CD doesn't like my old Optiplex GX110. Any suggestions on what to do to install a copy of the system as it is if the drive dies before I can get a replacement? Is there a way to use the stuff in C:\WINDOWS\OPTIONS\CABS to make an installation CD I can use to get enough of the system running to connect to a network share? Is there a free program that will do the basic functionality of Norton Ghost used to do in making a copy of my hard drive, storing it on another computer, and then duplicating that setup complete with the system files on the new hard drive? I'd like options. At least I won't lose data due to my making a complete backup onto the virtual machine, but I fear I won't be able to use it without an install CD. Hopefully this will all be moot and I'll be able to get a new drive before the old one fails, in which case I can just hook it up as a D drive and use the XCOPY command. I just love the old OSes without the activation and machine/drive verification crap that makes replacing drives such a PITA. All this wouldn't be an issue if I could find the darn OEM CD. |
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