Installing old Win98 drive as slave to WinXP 1

[docholliday]

My old system board gave out, so I went out and got a new system that runs Windows XP (not the main reason but a good motivator to do so). I want to use my old 30 GB Western Digital drive as a slave drive, but without losing any of data. It is jumpered & cabled correctly & installed in the new HP Pav 763n, and WinXP recognized it as new hardware just fine. I also can see it in Control Panel/Admin Tools/Storage/Disk Management as disk 1 (the system sees the original HP partitions of C: and D:Recovery as disk 0). However, WinXP does not see the fat32 partition that I had made when the drive was in my old Win98 system. Disk Management says the entire partition is unallocated.

My question is: how do I get the system to recognize the drive & get to the data without losing anything?

 

[mudskipper]

Let's test your memory! On your old computer, when you first started the computer (before the Starting Windows splash screen comes up), did it say something to the effect of "Hold CTRL for boot options" or "Hold CTRL to boot from floppy"?

If it had some similar message, then you may have Drive Overlay software installed on your old hard drive. Drive overlay is used to allow your computer to use a hard drive that is too big for your motherboard's BIOS.

Bottom line is this--if you boot from the drive, then the Drive overlay starts up (so the hard drive works). If you put the hard drive into a computer as a slave, then (because you are not booting to it) the drive overlay does not load. As a result, windows thinks that your drive has no partitions.

IF this is your issue, then you might check out thread602-407242 for ideas. Be careful, though, as you don't want to lose any data!!!

BTW--is your new hard drive (with XP installed) formatted using NTFS (probably is)? If so, then you CAN'T boot to your old drive and transfer data to the XP drive because Fat32 can't see NTFS! Mudskipper
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Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[docholliday]

When I would boot, it would come up as you would expect a Win98 system to. The only way I could access the boot options was to hit F8 (Save Mode, logged, DOS, etc.) Now, my old drive was partitioned with EZ Bios that came with the Drive. I don't remember seeing the message, but that does not mean that EZ Bios didn't put Drive Overlay in there without me knowning.

I am not sure if WinXP had used NTFS or not. Now, I am not wanting to boot off the old drive & copy files over to the new one. I am wanting to do vice versa, having the system up in WinXP & moving the files over that way.

 

[mudskipper]

Yup, if you used EZ BIOS, then it is likely that this is your issue.

You MIGHT be able to use EZBIOS to control the XP drive, boot up, transfer files, and then take EZ BIOS back out, but I have seen most people trash their data in the process. I have done this successfully a few times, however.

I understand that you want to boot to XP and copy the files over, but unfortunately, it may be the easiest way--IF your XP drive is FAT32. You would boot to the old drive (making sure that you ONLY go into safe mode), transfer the needed files into a folder, and then switch them back around....

Do you, by chance, have access to an external zip drive? Or a spare hard drive (even less than 1 GB)?

ANYBODY ELSE OUT THERE HAVE AN IDEA OF HOW TO GET DATA OFF OF A HARD DRIVE THAT HAS DRIVE OVERLAY ON IT? Remember that the new drive is likely NTFS! Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[docholliday]

I do have extra drives & an unused Zip drive. I'm not sure how that will help me, is that just a generic question for all?

I was reading the other post you mentioned, and I may be able to either borrow a similar system board & get the other drive installed into that system, & then link them over their NICs, & then get the files that way. After that, I could go ahead & reinstall the drive into my new system & get it reformatted for WinXP.

I'll check the other options, but that method, like you said, may be the saftest.

However, if anyone can figure out what I can do in the current config, please feel free to share!

 

[mudskipper]

Using a simple network would be a cool way to do it!

An external zip drive is a pain in the butt if you have a large amount of data to transfer, but you could:
**Drive with EZ Bios=HD1
**New drive with XP installed=HD2
1) Hook up HD1 as the primary master. You don't need HD2 hooked up at this time
2) Start up, hold the left control key down until it tells you to insert your boot floopy
3) Once booted up, verify that you can see HD1's data by typing dir c: and hitting enter
4) Use your DOS zip tools to run guest.exe
5) Copy needed files/directories to zip disks
6) Turn off machine, take HD1 out.
7) Hook up HD2 as primary master
8) Boot up, copy data off of the zip disks onto HD2

With an extra hard drive, there is the possibility that you could transfer data onto the spare drive (from within safe mode of DOS mode, whatever). Then hook the spare drive up as a slave to your XP box and transfer over.

Just some options!! Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[firewolfrl]

goto

http://www.xosl.org

and download the boot manager
and read the directions.
you need at least a fat32 partition for it to work. this program is free and works great for secondary drives to boot.
I recommend you swap the primary and secondary drive and boot from the 98 drive and install the program then reboot and configure the program. (read the user guide)
I am using one win98 partition and three winXP partitions on four drives in my computer

 

[firewolfrl]

you need to get the program "Winternals Disk Commander" and extracted the contents of the drive without a drive letter. my earlier post will work if you can see the FAT settings of the drive.
"Winternals Disk Commander" does not require a working FAT nor does it require a drive letter. It is a time consuming program but it works like a charm.
leave your 98 drive as the secondary drive and run the xp drive as primary. the program works on either NTFS or FAT*. drive overlays will not matter to it either.

I don't have a link for a download for the program

 

[mudskipper]

Cool. Thanks, for the tip, firewolfrl.

docholliday, if you try this, please post the results! I would be very curious to read your experiences with it. Mudskipper
___________________________________________________________________________________

Groucho said it best- "A four year-old child could understand this! Quick! Run out and find me a four year-old child: I can't make heads nor tails out of this!"

 

[firewolfrl]

I had a 60gig IBM drive lose its partition record and I could not access the drive. I purchased "Winternals Disk Commander" at Staples and slaved the IBM drive. (I had a working XP drive for the primary)
I had irreplaceable data on the drive and thought I would have to send it out at $400 to pull the info off the platters.
The IBM drive had one XP partition (NTFS) and two logical data partitions (NTSF and FAT32) before it crashed. after the crash no partitions could be found (partition magic flagged the drive as one unknown partition). In the windows mode of "Winternals Disk Commander" and without a drive letter the program found and rebuilt the partitions (only within the program)and I was able to extract all the data from all of the partitions. the program averaged about 8 hours a partition to extract the data. at $40 it saved my important data and was well worth the cost. I sent the harddrive back to IBM to RMA it.

 

[docholliday]

$40? I guess I need to head to Office Despot, Office Maximus, or Best Buy. Winternals.com was hawking it out at $300!

 

[firewolfrl]

what a rip-off I bought the program while looking for something else, it was in a reduced price bin. I am very lucky I found it. $300 is alot of money to use a program once. here is a Trial download links

http://www.pillar-solutions.com/html/disk_commander.asp

here are some freeware links
PC Insector File Recovery 3.0.1

http://www.webattack.com/download/dlpcinspector.shtml

http://www.webattack.com/Freeware/system/fwdatarecovery.shtml

PC Insector File Recovery 3.0.1 (c-net)

http://download.com.com/3000-2248-10118664.html?tag=lst-0-19

 

[firewolfrl]

OK here we go!
uninstall all the harddrives except the 98 drive with overlay (master it)
use the manufacture disk that installed the drive overlay
***some drive overlays can be removed without data loss. check with the manufacturer***
uninstall the drive overlay
reboot and see if the drive boots to win98 if it does reinstall as slave and get the data

option #2
get partition magic and format a fat32 logical partition on the NTFS drive. reverse the drives and boot to win98 copy data to the new fat32 partition then...
remove all drives except the win98 drive
fdisk /mbr
fdisk remove all partition info
reinstall partition info
set active
reboot
format drive
slave the drive
reboot to xp
format the drive as NTSF
or leave it as FAt32

ouch!!!!

you might get lucky with just the removal of the drive overlay

hope this helps????
good luck!

 

[firewolfrl]

here is another good link

http://www.excite.co.uk/directory/Computers/Software/Disk_Management/Error_Checking_and_Repair

 

[firewolfrl]

I just checked out the program "PC Inspector File Recovery 3.0.1" its freeware
it should copy what you need.

 

[roamer1]

put the offending drive on IDE0 as master- no other drives in system.

boot to the ezbios disk (drive installation disk).
Advanced options area will have options to remove or disable ezbios. TRY FIRST to disable, but ezbios should uninstall just fine without damage to the partition.

I am afraid that the partiton is gone anyway, as I recall, it is usually visible as an unknown type under EZBios.

you have nothing to lose by removing the EZBios as your end game (if it doesn't work), namely file or partition recovery, remains the same.

-Bruce

 

[docholliday]

Current status: PC Inspector is working to a point. I can get to my files, but it is real ugly & time consuming. I have to find & select the files, hoping I get everything.
That is assuming that it does not flake out & cause me to kill the program & have to restart all over again. It looks to me that my entire FAT32 was one of the things that my system board took with it when it went to Valhalla. This may be hindering PC Inspector & causing my faults with it. How do you have 3 transistors & a capasitor explode without affecting anything else on the power chain?

Winternals Disk Commander is doing exactly what I want to do. It is searching the volume group of the old disk & it sees all the files. It lets you select what folders to get & will check for errors before copying.

However, I got the trial version from their website, which does not allow copying over to the good disk. I checked the websites for Staples, Best Buy, and Offices Max & Depot, and either they no longer carry the software, or they don't care to list them on the website.

As soon as I locate a copy, I'll post the results. Otherwise, I'll review the brute force techniquess that everyone is happy to share & give those a runthrough. Hopefully I can find my EZBios disk or get it from their website.

 

[firewolfrl]

you might try Kazaa file sharing
you can get it at

http://www.downloads.com

I found four users sharing the full version earlier today

 

[docholliday]

Disk Commander worked like a charm. I got everthing I needed, & WinXP was able to reformat the partition just fine.

 

[firewolfrl]

good to hear that.
I think its the best program out there for file recovery.