Hi everyone,
I have a 9 year old HP that works perfect, it's a great machine. I'm also using a external hard drive.

As a backup to a catastrophic hard drive failure I was thinking about installing win98 using my cab files, on the external hard drive. I've already copied the most important files that I want there but got to thinking why not also set up windows there so I could run the system in event of a burned out hard drive on the main computer.

I know how to run a reinstall from the cab files BUT I actually have the HP recovery cds that would install windows with the original factory settings.

So my question is: would I be able to set that up on the external drive without any fuss?

And put it in a folder so windows doesn't start just by going to the drive,

And any tweaks and hints you have will sound good to me......

THANKS,
:)

How are you going to access the external drive if your main computer goes out?

I think it MAY be possable to run Win98 from a bootable USB External drive but you would need to have a compliant BIOS and that part of the computer would need to be working.

I don't believe it would be possible to boot from a folder. You could partition the external drive and install Win98 to the primary partition.

I doubt a 9 year old computer will have an option to boot from a USB drive.

mmm - theoretically it can/has been dun... but appears fraught to say the least...

Whilst generally '9x/ME like to go to the c: drive... the actual system files (the OS itself) can go elsewhere...; as long as you have corrrectly installed the boot/start-up files onto c: .

Thus if you were to boot with either a suitable '98 boot-floppy or CD to a dos (7x in this case) prompt and ensure you have usb access/support enabled (drivers installed) you may be able then to access that extrnal drive and boot to the OS thereon.

This is briefly discussed here - and does also mention that it can be a little fraught...

http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic748...

Another option requires your PC to support booting from USB...; and presuming so then one creates a bootable hd installation that is accessible at boot time via usb. Haven't gone that route (or the first approach above) so can't advise further in either regard...

Better approach? Make copy of - as in clone - your current drive (Acronis, Ghost etc...) to intended usb drive; then - if your current drive fails.. install that cloned drive in place of the failed drive?

And regardless of the above... ensure you make regular copies of all those important files etc. that you wouldn't want to lose; make them to optical media and verify they will play etc. on both the parent system and at least one other... And update those copies regularly...

Thanks for the really good ideas, to both of you. I kinda figured there would be a few obstacles. One thing, I will go into my BIOS setup and see what boot options appear.

I was really implying a 'mechanical' failure of the hard drive so it would have to be replaced. Thus I wouldn't have an option to reinstall files from the external since the main hard drive would be dead.

One option is to actually prevent this and put a 'new' hard drive in now. So that's a primary consideration. I think the last time I did a surface scan there was 1 bad cluster.

Still thinking,
:)

Replace the drive - sooner than later... And with most new drives (by all/many accounts) you may get a util that allows you copy the old to the new - intact.. Or it can downloaded from the web-site?

Drives is cheep these daze... so not werth risking all - unless you have already a true replacement ready to go (OS/apps etc. already installed on it...)?

A system 9 years old will not be able to configure a harddrive larger than 127GB. You will need to get a 120GB or smaller. What capacity is your current HDrive?

Good point OtH - could also use and add-in controller card?

Hi,
The current hard drive is 15 GB, high speed 7200 rpm, when I configured it I did have the option for a 30 GB drive but passed it for the high speed one. Anything in the 100 gb range would be excellent enough.

I put my current saved files on to the external drive. But I have everything I want on the external and some flash drives, so I'm in the safe zone.

Thanks for all the great ideas! :)

Harddrives in the 100/120GB range are getting hard to find. You could install a PCI based controller card in order to use a larger drive. Be aware that Win98 is not 48bit compliant either. This means if you consider a large HDrive you will need to make the partition for Win98 smaller than 127GB. Below is a link to a WDigital 80GB drive for $42. Be aware that you MAY need to get a newer copy of FDisk in order to partition a harddrive larger than 64GB. You can find one at bootdisk.com.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...

Well, ya know, I'm thinking..........maybe I could get another computer that's not too expensive, I wouldn't need a monitor, I have to consider that too, but those hard drives are cheap.

Remember the Apple cube?
I'd like a pc like that...something tiny but with a new format like Vista or XP.

I have some good ideas, thanks for helping.
:)

A tiny XP computer is the Compag Evo 510 (less than $200 refurbished).
It is a SFF (small form factor) business machine.
Just do a search on Google, but I know that pcsurplusonline.com has a selection.