Reinstalling Win 98 by changing directory

[cshajkur]

I have and use two hard drives 13.6 and 20gigs respectively. Both are similiar but not exact. I use them as a backup to each other for when windows crash. On one of the drives, win 98 has become so corrupt, I am unable to reinstall windows over it to replace the corrupted files. Can I copy the Registry from the working drive and transfer it to the corrupted drive? If so, How?

Also I remember reading, that Win 98 can be reinstalled into a different directory by naming the old corrupted version as Win 98Flat.

 

[Mulga]

I doubt if copying the registry will do any good, even if it worked which is doubtful. Why not format the bad drive, install it as a slave to the good one and use Xcopy to make an exact copy of the good one on it.

xcopy [source] [destination] /s /h /k All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Kento]

"Can I copy the Registry from the working drive and transfer it to the corrupted drive?"

Are you getting some registry error? But that would be a bad idea. Formatting the drive will reload the registry. I would suggest just doing that.

http://www.windowsreinstall.com/

 

[Mulga]

xcopy gives you the option of using many more switches than just plain copy does, it also supports long filenames. The switches I have included are as follows
/s copies all directories and all their sub directories
/h copies hidden and system files
/k copies the file attributes All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[jnicks]

Hi cshajkur,

You asked,
"Can I copy the Registry from the working drive and transfer it to the corrupted drive?"

Yes.

1. Reboot to DOS. (Otherwise Windows has the files busy and locked.)

2. In the systems areas (e.g. C:\WINDOWS) find all the DAT files and copy them. These will be USER.DAT and SYSTEM.DAT and perhaps some others in user profile areas.

DIR C:\WINDOWS\*.DAT /B
then copy them from the 'good' drive


3. Optional: While you are in DOS run
SCANREG /FIX
which will to some degree check and re-write your DAT files often making them smaller and faster, or at least less slow.

J

"When I am working with the Windows Registry I feel as I think an FBI Special Agent might feel when looking for evidence in a trash dump, 'I went to law school for this?'"

 

[cshajkur]

Thanks for the Input. Backing up data is more difficult than its made out to be. Reinstalling drivers is a major chore and takes days to complete. Also difficult to recover software programs for which there is no backup.

It would be ideal to place all of my drivers on one bootable backup disk but how?

Can the miscellaneous software programs be converted to zip or executable file, then stored on a backup disk?

I'm getting so many registry error messages they are too numerous to mentioned here. The reason I suspect the registry as being the problem.

Are there backup programs available,which could be used by a novice?

 

[mainegeek]

Just curious? Is either of the drives a Maxtor? If so,
did you buy it retail, and did you keep the floppy or cd
that came with it?

 

[dentarthurdent]

Hi cshajkur,

I usually use Norton Ghost to make a good copy of a working windows installation. If you update the ghost image on a regular basis, then when something goes badly wrong with windows you can simply replace the faulty installation with the good image, which you could store on your second hard disk. You can even store the image file on a different PC and load it up over the network. There is no need to reformat or fdisk your drive as ghost does all of this for you and it's very easy to use.
Hope this helps.

Will.

 

[cshajkur]

I want to thank all of you for responding. The information you all have provided help me resolve an issue which usally requires R and R of Win 98. Internet Explorer now works fine. I'm still working on the OE 6 issue but I'm sure it will be resolved too. I review several forums but always come here for the more difficult issues. I have never been disappointed. Thanks again.