I am just getting hooked on the idea of using Partition Magic to have multiple operating systems. I grabbed one of the old hard drives from an old machine I have and copied the partitions (the old machine was using Win 3.11 with two 2GB partitions) over to my current computer, and resized the partitions to get rid of empty space. At first, I couldn't get Windows 3.11 to load off the partitions I just copied over, so I made some slight adjustments to the Video and Sound settings. It will load, but I'm having some other problems now. It won't recognize the other partition (configured as a logical drive), or the CD rom drive. It is loading the CD rom Driver and everything, but I'm afraid a lot of the settings are hard coded into the ini file(s). Is there any way to get Windows to adjust short of reinstalling? I can't find my install diskettes, and I don't really want to pay $30-$70 to get another set, can I buy it online somewhere (NOT EBAY) for maybe $20 or less? Thank you for your help.

(If I can just fix what I have installed instead of purchase the OS again, I would prefer that solution. Thanks again)

You probably got all of the old windows off of the old drive if you cloned the partitions. Your copied partition should not be greater than 2 GB and be FAT16 and bee at the beginning of the hard drive. You should have not resized the drive until you got it working. There is no problem in leaving unallocated space.

You do not need a 3rd party boot manger for Windows, but if you want Linux etc then try:

http://www.ranish.com/part/xosl.htm

Can you start again ?? if so...........

Create a FAT16 active partition at the begining of the hard drive and put your old hard drive in the PC as a slave, software like GHOST can clone the old to new.

Following the M$ procedure then you can install W9x/NT:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;217210

I realize that when I cloned the partitions over, it left Windows 3.11 as configured for the old system. The partition configuration worked on the old system, and I made sure that I kept both the partitions under 2GB, and the Windows 3.11 system partition was the first physical partition on the drive. Both partitions were kept as FAT16. Should I try returning both partitions to their original size? Does Windows 3.11 actually not support having a partition changed after installation?

As for using BootMagic for my boot manager, I figured it would be more powerful than the one Windows XP has, plus I haven't installed XP on the hard drive yet. I plan to try Linux out after I get my 3 Windows OS's configured and running.

Please don't get the wrong idea, the Windows 3.11 system partition was transferred properly, and I can boot Windows 3.11 completely. What I haven't been able to work out yet is the 2nd partition (also less than 2GB, physically located within the first 3GB of the hard drive, FAT16, Win3.11 should be able to see it), and Windows 3.11 doesn't recognize my CD-Rom. Is there a config file or program I can use to fix the hardware configuration issues. I need to find where to uninstall the sound driver junk, the sound card on my current computer is probably too new for Windows 3.11 to ever run properly.

When I get back from school, I'm going to try to boot to DOS and see if it will recognize my 2nd partition and CD Rom drive.

Windows 3.11 doesn't recognize my CD-Rom
Windows 3.11 has no CD-ROM drivers, it uses the ones from DOS, so first be sure that CD works in plain dos. If not, install a CD-ROM driver (as VIDE-CDD.SYS, easily found by searching in goolge) by loading it in config.sys with a "/D:" parameter followed by a name of your choice (and you won't be able to use any dirs/files with this name) and add "mscdex" (comes with DOS) to your autoexec.bat (or download shsucdx) followed by the same parameter.

When I get back from school, I'm going to try to boot to DOS and see if it will recognize my 2nd partition
Have you checked the LASTDRIIVE config? Go to config.sys and search for such a line. If you find none, add one at the end like this: "LASTDRIVE=Z" (with no quotes), save and reboot

Thanks for your input. I was pouring over some old Windows troubleshooting books I have, and also came to the conclusion that I'd change the Lastdrive variable. The MSCDEX driver is loaded in DOS, but I hadn't tried to see if the CD drive was working with the driver yet.

I obtained the installation files needed for Windows 3.1, just in case I need them. But I still think there's a chance I can get it to work. I'll probably just have to do without sound and SVGA drivers. Is there any easy way to get a kind of "universal" driver that supports multiple sound cards? My current system is using an Avance AC'97 sound card.

I had to mess with the 2nd partition and convert it to a primary, and Win311 now recognizes it. I went into the ini files and deleted all references to the old sound card, and Win311 now boots with no error messages at all.

I had to reconfigure the autoexec, it was mapping the CD drive to a variable that wasn't defined, so I told MSCDEX to make the CD drive "E:".

So now it seems to work just like it does on my old computer, except I have tons of memory, and I don't have a sound card driver. Does anybody know of a Win311 compatible sound card driver for an Avance AC'97 card? Also, I might try putting the video card driver back, because I want better than 640x480 resolution.