Bananaman Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Hi Any Tecie people out there know if there is a danger of lossing stored info i.e. all my work for the last 3 years if i re-install Win 98 without fully backing up everything (BIG job) what chance is there that i will lose it?. My computer keeps crashing & getting frozen & i then have to turn it of without sutting it down, I'm sure this just makes the problem worse? Any ideas? Thanks Andy Quote
adhawkins Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Best advice when re-installing is to back everything up and format the drive I'm afraid. It's the only way to be sure. Simplest way to do this (probably) would be to buy a second hard disk, and use that to install 98 on. Then change your current disk's settings to be a slave, and use that as a second disk from now on. Disks are (relatively) cheap these days... Andy Quote
Mike dB Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Disks are (relatively) cheap these days... You can say that again! £250 for 250Gb Quote
neilwillis Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Probably a good time to upgrade your operating system too. I seem to recall that win 98 can struggle to cope with large storage devices, and will only see part of the available capacity. Can anyone confirm or refute this? Quote
studbuckle Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Any Tecie people out there know if there is a danger of lossing stored info i.e. all my work for the last 3 years if i re-install Win 98 without fully backing up everything Yes there is a risk I'd suggest putting in a new drive as Andy says but if you can't/dont want to do this then an install over the top of 98 with same version 'should' not intefere with any program or document information. I did this recently. I also put an install of 2000 on to a system with a knackered copy of 98 on it as a second OS rather than an upgrade. This too preserves all the data and gives you a nice clean copy of a decent (well, better) OS Quote
JonnyBoy Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 create a partition using partition magic on your current HDD or like Andy says buy a new drive. Drag 'my documents' 'favourites' 'address book' 'email inbox' across to the new volume and reformat the old one. If the old drive is a bit f***** with bad clusters etc, then it will still slow the whole system down on a new install. I borrowed a mates old hdd to backup onto once. it had some bad clusters (such that windows could not install onto it) and having it connected zapped system resources so badly my PC was pretty much unuseable. if you use Direct connect/ kazaa etc you can get Partition magic no problem. Quote
Bananaman Posted April 9, 2003 Author Posted April 9, 2003 Thanks all I actually have a spare hard disc on my computer (D drive) which is 18Gb (C drive is 15Gb & about 1/2 full). Simplest way to do this (probably) would be to buy a second hard disk, and use that to install 98 on. Then change your current disk's settings to be a slave, and use that as a second disk from now on. Right got the first bit, when you insert the Win 98 disc will it ask me which drive i want it installed on? How do i change the C drive to be a slave? Do I have to copy all the info across from C to D? Do i still need to back-up? Andy Quote
adhawkins Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Right got the first bit, when you insert the Win 98 disc will it ask me which drive i want it installed on?How do i change the C drive to be a slave? Do I have to copy all the info across from C to D? Do i still need to back-up? Andy Is your D: drive empty at the moment? If so, I'd do it this way: 1. Turn your PC off 2. Look at the hard disks, on the back of them (where the connectors are) you'll see some jumpers (little black plastic things). These tell the drive whether it's a master or a slave (usually). You might need to take the disks out of the PC (there'll be a label on the disk telling you what the jumpers do) to change the drives so that the one that was the master ( C ) becomes a slave, and the one that was the slave (D) becomes the master). 3. Install Win98 from the CD onto the new C drive (what was your empty D drive). Do not let it 'upgrade' the version it finds on the D: drive. If it insists, power the PC down, remove the power plug from the D drive, and install again. 4. When you're finished, you'll have a C drive with nothing but Win98 on it, and a D drive (re-connect the power if you need to) with all your old stuff on it. 5. Copy any stuff from the D drive onto the C drive, deleting what you've copied from D once you're sure it's 'safe' (or just leave D with a backup copy for a while). Robert is your proverbial parent's brother. Andy Quote
JonnyBoy Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 definately do a full reinstall....repairing windows installs is crap and putting a new O/S over a **** old install will make your computer run at no where near full speed! I assume you are an intelligent guy and have all your files in 'my documents' if so drag and dropping of this folder onto the spare will keep everything you need work wise. saving emails and address books, IE favoutites etc is also simple. having two drives with primary partitions and operating systems may confuse things and you could end up booting off the wrong one...i've done this before...had to reinstall/format again! (although your will contain the same driver files etc so not so bad) Copying onto your spare prevents you having to break open a seal and void any remaining warranty etc and you also dont have to mess around with ide ribbon cable, jumpers and which cable plug goes into which device. Have you got all the drivers for the hardware? if not i'd advise downloading them before you start. oh yeah...if using win98 format with fat32 not fat if you get an option (just to confuse things further ) however you do it...just make sure that you say yes to formatting the drive you want to! otherwise say fairwell, so like andy said..perhaps best to take out the back-up drive if you do end up swapping drive letters and jumpers Quote
Robertio Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 To save mucking about with jumpers just plug your spare hard disk in place of your CD / DVD drive, copy the stuff over and put it back to how it was before, then do a clean install. Always safer not to have your backup hard disk in the machine at the same time as formatting - you are never 100% sure you've done the right one Quote
damianc Posted April 9, 2003 Posted April 9, 2003 Not sure whether '98 checks for master on ide0 and calls it c: ide1-> d: In this case putting the spare disk in place of the CD it will still become drive d:. It'll also need jumpering to master ide1 anyway I'd do what adhawkins suggests with the additional belt 'n' braces of making sure the old c: drive is not connected or powered during the install (I simply don't trust Mr Gates) When you've installed the new c: drive you can plug the old disk back in (as a slave to the c: drive or mastering the other ide channel) Quote
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