Help: hardware upgrade in win98

I've an old win98 PC, I intend to take advantage upgrade to P4 2.0G,
100G HD, 256 meg ram PC I bought for $99.00

The Question is, Is that possible simply move the old win98 hard-drive
from old Pentium 600mhz into the new PC and run without problem?

In case not possible, will clone the win98 hard disk to the new HD will
work?

I just don't want to risk the data lost in the win98 nor want to
jeopardize the functional softwares that no upgrade and replacement.


Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Whether you move the HD or clone it, the problem is going to be that the new
hardware will require an entirely different set of drivers. The usual way to
deal with this is to delete the ENUM key, entirely, from the HKLM\Software
hive in the Registry. Immediately move the drive to the new machine, and
when it cranks up it will prompt to install drivers. The most important ones
are video and modem or LAN (depending on how you connect to the internet.)
You should have those on hand and ready to install.

Are you planning on dumping the old machine? What make/model is it? You
would almost certainly do better to install Windows 98 (or XP) fresh to the
new machine if you have a generic copy of the installation files. If your
old system is a "proprietary" system (think Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.) then the
installation media won't probably work on the new machine. It will also have
a lot of garbage on the old drive, and moving that to the new machine
doesn't really make much sense. What make/model is the new machine?

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User

"Meximal" wrote in message
...
I've an old win98 PC, I intend to take advantage upgrade to P4 2.0G,
100G HD, 256 meg ram PC I bought for $99.00

The Question is, Is that possible simply move the old win98 hard-drive
from old Pentium 600mhz into the new PC and run without problem?

In case not possible, will clone the win98 hard disk to the new HD will
work?

I just don't want to risk the data lost in the win98 nor want to
jeopardize the functional softwares that no upgrade and replacement.


Please help.

Thanks in advance.

Gary S. Terhune wrote:
Whether you move the HD or clone it, the problem is going to be that the new
hardware will require an entirely different set of drivers. The usual way to
deal with this is to delete the ENUM key, entirely, from the HKLM\Software
hive in the Registry. Immediately move the drive to the new machine, and
when it cranks up it will prompt to install drivers. The most important ones
are video and modem or LAN (depending on how you connect to the internet.)
You should have those on hand and ready to install.

Are you planning on dumping the old machine? What make/model is it? You
would almost certainly do better to install Windows 98 (or XP) fresh to the
new machine if you have a generic copy of the installation files. If your
old system is a "proprietary" system (think Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.) then the
installation media won't probably work on the new machine. It will also have
a lot of garbage on the old drive, and moving that to the new machine
doesn't really make much sense. What make/model is the new machine?



it's the software and data in the old win98 pc I care about.
The origin software floppy is lost and no way to upgrade. Company is
gone. The data is non compatible to other available expensive softwares
in market. Therefore, I need to make sure this old generation software
and data will function. Otherwise, it would take me at least 6 months
to rebuild it with no guarantee the same.

My old win98 pc is stated Compaq p166. I have the p4 2.0G get ready for
it, but I dare not touching it until I am sure doable without risking
all the data and functional software.

Is that possible I install win98 in the new PC, then clone the software
and data to the new win98?


Thanks in advance, again.

If you're going to clone the old system onto the new one, there's no need to
first install '98. The way I'd do it is as follows. I can't guarantee
success, but it's the only real option you have.

Get BootIt NG from www.bootitng.com. Download the EXE or ZIP file, and use
that to create a bootable floppy for installation. Next, put the old HD into
the new machine as the Secondary Master drive. Then boot to the BootIt NG
(BING) floppy disk. When prompted to install BING, Cancel the installation.
That will drop you into Maintenance Mode. From there, use Partition Work.
Choose HDD1 (the old drive -- the new drive will be HDD0.) Click on the
partition listed there (if there's more than one, choose the large one, as
the other is likely a "Restore" partition.) Select Copy. Navigate to the new
HDD, and if a partition already exists, either delete it or shrink
it--create enough "Free Space" to allow you to paste in the copy of the old
partition. (See below for more discussion of this issue.)

DO NOT choose the "Data Only" option if available. You want a true copy of
the partition. You do NOT want to create an Image, you simply want to
Copy/Paste the partition. When the copying is finished, if you left an
existing partition on the drive (if there are now more than one partition),
choose that partition's Properties and Hide it. Then turn off the system.
Disconnect and/or remove the old drive to keep it safe. Then boot to a
standard Windows Startup floppy disk.

From the A:\ prompt, run the following commands. (Press enter at the end
of each line. Pay attention to spaces and punctuation.)

c:
attrib -s -h -r MSDOS.SYS
edit MSDOS.SYS

Add a line in the [Options] section, or edit the existing line to say:
BootSafe=1

Press Alt-F-S then Alt-F-X to Save and Exit. Then run this command:

attrib +r +h +s MSDOS.SYS

Remove the floppy Startup disk and use Ctrl-Alt-Del to restart. The system
should boot to Safe Mode. In Safe Mode, use the Start\Run box to run
REGEDIT. In HKEY_Local_Machine, delete the entire ENUM key. That's the
Hardware Profile(s).

Now, go to Folder Options in Windows Explorer (usually the View menu) and
make sure that "Show All Files" is enabled on the View tab. Then find
C:\MSDOS.SYS, right-click it, choose Properties, uncheck Read-Only attribute
and Apply. Then open the MSDOS.SYS file in Notepad. Change BootSafe=1 to
BootSafe=0. Save and then re-enable Read-Only attribute in the Properties
tab that you hopefully left open. Click OK. Finally, restart and begin the
possibly long and arduous task of installing new drivers.

Now, if that data and that old application are as important as you say they
are, you should create one or more Image copies of that old partition, using
BING, preferably onto a DVD if you have a DVD burner. At least create one
Image at the end of the new hard drive. I'd do both, and then put the old
hard drive away somewhere safe. You want something to fall back on if the
one you're using gets messed up, preferably redundant copies. I would also
suggest that you multi-boot the new machine, using the old partition only
for it's critical role, and using a new installation of 98 or XP for
everything else. In short, make sure you have multiple copies of the old
partition with it's critical app and data, and also make regular backups of
just the data as it changes over time.

Actually, a great time to create a new Image backup or three is *after* you
delete the ENUM key in the Registry, before restarting in Normal Mode and
installing drivers. Then, in the future, you can simply restore that Image
to any system that will support Win98 decently and immediately let it begin
to install drivers.

If you use BootIt NG to multi-boot your system, then you will need to
purchase a license for $35. Well worth the money. You don't need a license
to perform the partition copying, imaging, resizing, moving, etc.

After all that, is there any reason you can't just leave the old app and
data on the old machine and use the new machine for everything else? (Though
I'd still want to make a few Image backups to store away.)

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS MVP Shell/User


"Meximal" wrote in message
...
Gary S. Terhune wrote:
Whether you move the HD or clone it, the problem is going to be that the
new
hardware will require an entirely different set of drivers. The usual
way to
deal with this is to delete the ENUM key, entirely, from the
HKLM\Software
hive in the Registry. Immediately move the drive to the new machine, and
when it cranks up it will prompt to install drivers. The most important
ones
are video and modem or LAN (depending on how you connect to the
internet.)
You should have those on hand and ready to install.

Are you planning on dumping the old machine? What make/model is it? You
would almost certainly do better to install Windows 98 (or XP) fresh to
the
new machine if you have a generic copy of the installation files. If
your
old system is a "proprietary" system (think Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.) then
the
installation media won't probably work on the new machine. It will also
have
a lot of garbage on the old drive, and moving that to the new machine
doesn't really make much sense. What make/model is the new machine?



it's the software and data in the old win98 pc I care about.
The origin software floppy is lost and no way to upgrade. Company is
gone. The data is non compatible to other available expensive softwares
in market. Therefore, I need to make sure this old generation software
and data will function. Otherwise, it would take me at least 6 months
to rebuild it with no guarantee the same.

My old win98 pc is stated Compaq p166. I have the p4 2.0G get ready for
it, but I dare not touching it until I am sure doable without risking
all the data and functional software.

Is that possible I install win98 in the new PC, then clone the software
and data to the new win98?


Thanks in advance, again.