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I have a small (Maxtor) hard drive that has 120 Mega bytes. It currently has Windows 95 on it. I have pulled it out of the computer that is a 486 DX 33. and replaced it with a 6.2 gigabyte Hard drive. The bigger hard drive only has DOS 6.22 on it, nothing else.
What I want to do is to take all of the files on the smaller hard drive (Maxtor)that has Windows 95 on it and transfer them over to the larger hard drive, Samsung that only has DOS 6.22 on it.
Can this be done and if so how?
I know that the larger hard drive is to be the last device on the IDE cable connection.
And I know that the jumpers on the smaller hard drive are to be set to SLAVE and the larger hard drive is to be set to MASTER. What I don't know is the exact process to moves all the files over to the larger hard drive from the smaller one and have a larger hard drive working with windows 95.
NO I don't have the Windows 95 CD or discs to make the process easier.
Thanks in Advance
Easiest would be first to slave the 6 Gb drive to the 120 Mb, mainly because you will need to start in Win95 to preserve long filenames - DOS622 won't. You also need to make a Win95 'startup disk' - always a good idea. One thing you should be aware of, is that DOS622 can't recognize drives or partitions larger than 2 Gb - you will probably have to repartition the larger drive. Then again, Win95 didn't recognize large disks until the 'B' release came out. I'm assuming that you want to transfer the works over the the big drive and eventually remove the little one. Sure, you can probably use xcopy to transfer the files to the slave, then change the slave to master and make it bootable with the 'startup' disk using the sys command.
I don't think that the drive order on the IDE cable matters, just the jumper settings, although I generally put the 'master' on the end (habit).
Probably other ways, there are various 'disk cloning' utilities - it is a good idea to have the installation disk though, it makes adding hardware etc easier.
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You say you do not have an installation CD-ROM. Too bad. That would be the easiest way to go. But here is what I would do.
From what I read in your post, you want to swap the 120 MB HD with a 6 GB HD in a 486 Machine.
You need the following:
1. The third party diskmanager software for your 6 GB Samsumg hard disk. It is likely that your old 486 will not recognize anything over 512 MB (Maybe 2 GB) if you are lucky. You can probably get this from the HD manufacturer's website. You will need this software in order to allow the machine to access the HD space above 512 (or 2 GB).
2. A two-drive (has three connectors) IDE ribbon cable. Or two-one drive cables (if your machine's on board IDE controller supports four drives)
3. Two blank floppies (preferably three).
First things first. MAKE A WIN95 boot disk from the 120 MB Hard disk. Make two. It's always good to have it. I believe they are made from the Control Panel, Add/Remove, Create Start-up disk.
Also, put the 3rd party Samsumg disk manager software on a floppy.
Remove the 120 MB HD, install the 6 GB. Boot with the Samsung Software. It should prompt you for what you want to do. It may ask for your your OS system disk. If so, use the Win Startup disk you created. Tell it you want one big partition, FAT32 (Enable large disk support if prompted). Get rid of the DOS 6.22 partitions - you don't need them. HOWEVER, if you want to Dual Boot, you will need to have a FAT16 partition to do so. So, if you ever want to go back to DOS, keep the FAT 16 partitions. (THere should be two partions on that 6GB HD, A Primary, and extended, with two logical drives in the extended partition, making the 6 GB having a C:, D:, and E:.
You may have to reboot with the Win95 Starup disk, and format the new partition, and transfer the system files over. Be sure to make it active. Your machine's BIOS should have it's IDE controller set to "Auto"
Once the hard drive is formatted, and the system files installed, remove it from the machine, re-install the 120 MB hard disk (as master), and install the 6 gb as the slave, or the secondary master.
Boot the machine. When the GUI finishes loading, simply copy the entire contnts from C: (the 120 MB) to D: (the 6 GB hard disk).
Be sure that you have copied any *hidden files*.Shut down the machine.
Remove the 120 MB disk, make the 6 GB the master. Boot the machine. Hopefully it should work.
There are no guarentees. Problems may arise. I cannot anticipate every problem which may occur during this process.
Good luck.
-Doug
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Thanks to all.
Kelly, yes I read my e-mail,I've sent you a reply.
Doug and jboy, I can't seem to make a boot disk from my Win 95. when I try I am asked to insert the CD or first disk?. I'm not sure why I'm being prompted, as I have not had this request when I've made a boot disk for my Win 98. Where can I obtain a Win 95 boot disk, if not from my hard drive.
Can I use the Win 98 boot disk?
Where can I get specific information on partitioning.
How can I determine if my small hard drive or large drive for that matter will read anything over 512 Mg or 2 GB.?
How would I begin to look for the third party disk manager from the manufacturer. Should I look under their support page or downloads?
Note: I have copies of the following on two CD's.
Norton Ghost 2000 Personal Edition
and
Win CABS 95A, 95B, 95C
and
Win 98 and Win 98SE, I'm not sure what good they are to me, can they help?.
Doug, yes I am wanting to swap one hard drive and all its contents over to the other.Thanks again
Gerry J.
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Various boot disks are available at bootdisk.com, although you could very likely create one from a DOS prompt by entering:
sys a:
with a blank floppy in the a: drive (of course)
While you can start your system with any boot disk, for what you want to do, you will need the disk appropriate to your version of Windows, otherwise there will likely be version problems when you retransfer the system files.
Yeah, it struck me later that a 486 BIOS will never (on its own) recognize all of a 6 Gb disk - 500 Mb or so, maybe 2 Gb, as stated above. Definitely check out the manufacturer's site for a drive overlay utility, can't say where exactly, but they should have one.
If you have the CAB files for your version of Windows, that will help, you can store them in a folder and if asked, you can direct the setup utility to look there.
I've never attempted *exactly* what you are doing, but it should be possible, perhaps someone a bit more experienced with this can advise you further.
Best of luck ;-)
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To make a cheap and sleezy Win95 Bootdisk.
Go to a DOS-Prompt. Start, Run, Command.
Put a blank formatted floppy in the bootable floppy drive (A:).
type: sys c: a:
You should get a message stating something to the effect: System Transferred.
The change to c:\windows\command
Copy the following files to your now bootable floppy:
fdisk.exe
format.com
sys.comThis should give you the files you need to set up your 6GB hard disk.
Windows 95 wants the original CD or the first floppy becuase the files (a RAMDISK and some other crap) were not extracted from the Cabinet files when your OS was installed.
The Samsung Website should have your DM Software available on it somewhere. I know Western Digital has their E-Z Drive software available for download.
Try: http://www.samsungelectronics.com/hdd/support/utilities/utilities_01.html
Even if you make the 6GB disk readable and bootable, your OS still may not load correctly. Something just tells me that some hidden crap isn't going to make the copy over from the 120 MB to the 6GB. There's no harm in trying.
I can't tell you what files (on CD) you have. They appear to be the cabinet files for the various OS's. Without seeing them, I can't be sure.
Once again, good luck.
-Doug
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Thanks gents. I will review all that you have given me and proceed slowly. Will post the results later.
Gerry J.
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Well I am just about to get down and dirty with these two hard drives. I have a few questions: I discovered that my smaller hard drive has DOS 4.1 and my larger hard drive has Dos 6.22.
Can I effectively copy all the files from the small hard drive that has DOS 4.1 over to the larger hard drive that has DOS 6.22 without problems?.
Will I have to somehow upgrade the Dos 4.1 on the smaller hard drive to Dos 6.22 before I copy all of it's files ?
Can I copy the Dos operating system without messing everything else up?, or does my hard drive need to be completely formattd before the upgrade can happen?....
Can I put my Dos 6.22 disk 1 into drive A:\ and boot up in hopes that this will begin an upgrading process?
Please advise.
Gerry J.
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Um, Gerry, what makes you think that you have DOS4.1? I'm just askin' because that would be a little odd (DOS4 came out in 1990 or so) - does it say MS-DOS 4.1 or *something like* Windows 98. [Version 4.10.] (which would be more likely).
You do need to establish which version of Win95 you have/are trying to work with. Start in Win95, open 'control panel' then 'system' and you should see your Windows version. Old versions of Win95, just like DOS6x can only recognize disks/partitions up to 2 Gb - you need Win95B or C to make the best use of your 6 Gb disk.
All I can say for sure is that currently your 6 Gb disk consists of one partition, between 500Mb and 2 Gb - the rest of the disk is being unused - you probably need to either reformat it as a 'large disk' (in this case, 6 Gb) using Win95B or higher *or* if you only have Win95A, you probably need to set up the rest of the disk so that it can be used - in that case, Win95 or DOS622 would work.
If I understand correctly, you are trying to 'clone' your (so far unidentified) version of Win95 from the teeny, original hard drive to the large 6 Gb disk *mainly* because you do not have Win95 installation CD or disks, on a 486 machine - which you will need a 'drive overlay' program to force the BIOS to recognize.
While this isn't impossible (I suppose), it will be difficult, particularly if you are unsure of the disk's partition status.
I'm not trying to discourage you, but you need to familiarize yourself with a whole lot of things to do what you're attempting. You'll need to determine:
Windows version you're hoping to transfer
Partition information of the large drive
Usage of the drive overlay program on your 486
How to copy hidden files and directories from one HDD to another
How to transfer Windows system files from a floppy to your hard drive. (you did make a Windows startup disk, right?)A lot of this has been touched on in the previous posts here, but you need to know the details for your specific system and software.
If you want to post back with some of those details, that will help - I've never tried to shoehorn a large drive (2 Gb +) onto a 486 with an overlay, but probably someone here has - that might be the biggest obstacle - after that, once you determine the Win version, it'll (probably) get easier.
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If you have Windows 95 on the small drive, you do not have any version of DOS on it. The best way to transfer the data including hidden files and long filenames is to use ghost, but first you need to be able to access the entire drive. Either get an overlay file from a hard drive manufacturer or get a drive controller like Promise Tecnologies EIDE MAX or EIDE PRO. The overlay file is just a file with an .OVL extension that is loaded in the config.sys. The drawback is that you have to have it in the config.sys of every thing you boot from to access the whole drive at all times.
Your version of Windows 95 will probably support large drives, but I would stay with FAT16 as long as I was using a 486 computer.
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Hi jboy and Fred. I assumed the version of DOS is 4.1 because at my dos prompt the following appeared after I typed ver
Microsoft Windows 95 [version4.00.950]I went into my control panel\settings\system manager and the windows version came up the same
Microsoft Windows 95 1981-1995 version 4.00.950 8.0 mg Ram
Total space 123 mb
Free space 20.6 mb
After typing VER/R at the Dos prompt the following appeared.
Windows 95 Version 4.00.950
Revision A
DOS is in HMA
Maxtor HDD BIOS Settings:
47=User type, Cyl=762, Head=16, WPcom=0
Lzone=0, Sect=17, Size=101mbFdisk info is as follows:
Current fixed disk drive:1
Partition = C:1
Status = A
Type = PRI DOS
Volume Label = Calvary
MBYTES = 124
System = 16
Usage = 100%Samsung HDD Bios settings:
47=User type, Cyl=13232, Head=15, WPcom=0,
Lzone=0, Sect.=63, Size=6.40 GB
Fdisk settings:
Current fixed disk drive:1
Partition= C: 1 (under #1 it reads #2)
Status=A (under A nothing is indicated)
Type=PRI DOS(under PRI DOS it reads Non Dos)
Mbytes=37 (under 37 it reads 6069)
System=FAT16 (under FAT16 nothing is indicated)
Usage=16% (under 16% it reads 100%)
Total disk space is 473 MbytesHope this gives you more info to advise.
Thought; Can I keep the Windows 95 on current drive and attach the second drive and put on the second drive Microsoft office 2000 ? Things like excel and the like?Thanks again
Gerry J.
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Ahh... information :)
Ok, Win95A *no* large disk support (FAT16 only). You will need to divvy up the drive into at least 3 partitions, approx 2 Gb apiece.
Sure, easiest would be to continue to use the Samsung as slave drive and install programs there. Even so, your tiny Maxtor drive will start to fill up, as apps add things to the windows and system folders etc. (I run Win95A, and my system folder *alone* is 150 Mb).
Best would be to acquire a Win95 installation set, and start fresh on the 6 Gb drive - which is probably quite a bit faster than the Maxtor (fast HDD = better performance). Still, you could (and maybe should) set your swapfile up on the Samsung - that should improve performance, and provide plenty of virtual memory.You may need to reformat the Samsung - or finish setting up the partitions on it - you might need to install the drive overlay to do this. It looks as if the drive is not properly recognized (Total disk space is 473 Mbytes) and that the primary partition is set fairly small (Mbytes=37).
Here's the info from my 4 Gb FAT16 drive:
Display Partition InformationCurrent fixed disk drive: 1
Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS POWER_TOWER 2047 FAT16 51%
2 EXT DOS 1977 49%Total disk space is 4024 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)
... if that's any help - status indicates the active (boot) primary DOS partition, and the extended DOS partition (which appears as another 'drive'). No overlay required on this machine, so your results may be a bit different.
Hope this helps.
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A beautiful tool for copying one drive to another is Lcopy by Ortwin Glueck. It can be found by a Google search and will copy long filenames and will run from a floppy.
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Update: I Have discovered after doing a hard drive diagnostic test and then a low level format from Samsung,
(Shdiag.exe) found at the following web site:
http://www.samsungelectronics.com/hdd/support/utilities/utilities_02.html
it indicated that my hard drive has a problem and that I must contact either Samsung directly or my retailer. Up until now I thought my hard drive was working just fine, good thing I had something to do a thorough test with.I am now back to having a small hard drive with very limited capacity. I will end up having to get a larger one later on down the road.
Thanks to all for your input and immense help and advice.Gerry J
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