moving NT4.0 system files to a new HD

[tchris]

I'm just bought a newer, faster hard drive for my desktop. I'm planning to use the older drive as a backup. I read that I would see some improvement in performance if I move the operating system to the faster drive. Is there any way to do this in Windows NT aside from hooking both drives up to another computer? Any such thing as an NT boot disk?

[Paleo Pete]

Usually new drives come with an installation disk that contains software which prepares and installs the drive for you, and most have an option to transfer data to the new drive. Set up the new drive as Master, on the same IDE channel, and the old one as slave, use the installation software to transfer data, then if the new drive is faster it might be a good idea to move it to the secondary IDE controller.

I know this will work with win 95/98, but have never tried it with NT, since I've never had the opportunity to deal with NT extensively. But it should transfer the working OS to the new drive. If the drive needs to be set up in NTFS instead of FAT, that may be an issue, some of the NT folks should know more about that. Usually NTFS is better if you plan to run no DOS based applications.

Maybe some of the other folks here will be able to confirm or dispute all this...also, I know putting a CD ROM on the same drive as your hard drive will slow down the IDE channel butI'm not positive whether a slower hard drive will do the same. Seems to me it might, I'd put it on secondary IDE after transferring data.

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Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

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[Ghost_Hacker]

Yes there is a way to make an NT boot disk. To create one simply format a floppy from "inside" NT (right click your "A" drive and choose format. Then copy over these files: Boot.ini,ntldr,ntdetect.com. ( these are hidden files at the root of your "C" drive) This disk will then Boot this computer to NT but only if you don't change the order of the drives. If you do you'll need to edit the Boot.ini file.

The best way to transfer the system to your new disk is to use Ghost.( it works with NTFS drives, I'm not sure if the software Pete mentioned does.) With Ghost you can copy the contents of the old drive to your new drive. Then reconfigure the system and reboot.

Also as Pete mentioned if you place the old drive on the same IDE channel as the new drive. The speed of that channel will match the speed of the slowest drive.


Hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"

[tchris]

Thanks, both of you, for the helpful advice! This forum is excellent.

[Paleo Pete]

G_H: I'm not sure about this one. According to what I've gathered from the A+ books I've read, NT requires 3 floppies to be able to load from floppy. Now you come along and say it can be done with one disk. Enlighten me please. Are the other disks used to load other things, such as the NT version of the registry, system.ini and things like that or what? Or was the info I read related to earlier versions of NT while the newer (4.0 is it?) can boot from only one?

I know next to nothing about NT, only what little I've gathered from the A+ books I've studied, and wasn't sure at all how to go about creating boot disk(s) to begin with, so I didn't even try to touch that part...anyway, what's the difference? The book I read on it recently, or chapter actually, said 3 disks were needed to boot NT from floppy.

I'm definitely not questioning your info, from what I've seen on the forums you know lots more about NT than I do, just wondering what the difference is, I'm seeing conflicting info...I know NT looks about like 95/98, and can use NTFS or FAT, is picky about hardware, uses much better memory management and is more difficult to install. That's about the extent of my knowledge.

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So many idiots, and only six bullets...
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Ghost_Hacker]

You dare to question the great OZ!!! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif.....

OK here we go....... To install NT or repair an NT installation you need 3 floppies. These floppies are needed because there is no prior installation of NT on the system.(or the installation is broken.)

This isn't true for Windows 2000 which can use 4 floppies to install . To repair a Windows 2000 installion you use the recovery console which you can install from the installation cd.


However if there is already an NT/2000 installation on the system. You can use a boot floppy to access it. (You might have a problem with the "bootup" files on the hard drive which is preventing the system from starting for instance.) But you can not repair or install NT/2000 with this disk alone. In Tchris case since he's moving the Hard drive there would be no MBR record to boot NT on the active primary partition. So using the NT boot disk, with an edited Boot.ini file, He could start the computer using the NT system files located on the second disk.

Here's a tidbit form MS Knowledge base article Q119467:


"If You Have Access to a Computer Running Windows NT
---------------------------------------------------

1. Format a floppy disk by using the full format option in the Windows NT format
utility to properly rewrite any boot sector content on the floppy disk.

2. Copy the Ntldr file from the Windows NT CD-ROM, Windows NT ERD, or from a
computer that is running the same version of Windows NT as the computer that
you want to access with the bootable floppy disk. In Windows NT 4.0, you can
copy this file from the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM. In version of Windows earlier
than Windows NT 4.0, you may need to expand the file from NTLDR._ to NTLDR by
typing the following command at a command prompt:

"expand ntldr._ ntldr" (without the quotation marks)

3. Copy the Ntdetect.com file to the floppy disk.

4. Create a Boot.ini file or copy one from a computer that is running Windows
NT, and then modify it to match the computer that you are trying to access.
The following sample Boot.ini file provides an example for a single partition
SCSI drive with Windows NT installed in the Winnt folder; however, the exact
value in the [operating systems] section depends on the configuration of the
Windows NT computer that you are trying to access:


timeout=30
Default= scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\winnt

[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\winnt="Windows NT"

If your computer starts from an IDE, EIDE, or ESDI hard drive, replace scsi(0)
with multi(0). If you are using a computer that is running Windows NT 3.5 or
Windows NT 3.51 and your computer starts from the first or second SCSI drive,
then you can also replace scsi(0) with multi(0).

If you are using scsi(x) in the Boot.ini file, copy the correct device driver
for the SCSI controller and then rename it to Ntbootdd.sys. If you are using
multi(x) in the Boot.ini file, you do not need to do this.

5. [b]Start your computer by using the bootable disk, and then log on to Windows NT."


Note some of these steps are not needed if your current installation is working. You can simply copy the files from it

Hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 04-05-2001).]

[sleddog]

A Win95/98 bootable disk with a copy of pqmagict.exe (Partition Magic console mode) and fdisk.exe would also do the job.


[This message has been edited by sleddog (edited 04-05-2001).]

[Ghost_Hacker]

HEY....I had some more editing to do http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif


Here's link to that MS article: Article Q119467 (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q119/4/67.asp?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=Q119467&rnk=1&src=DHCS_MSPSS_gn_SRCH&SPR=CHS)

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 04-05-2001).]

[sleddog]

Sheesh, ME TOO!

I was gonna say:

Correct me if I'm wrong here...

The MBR of a WinNT system is a standard DOS/Windows MBR. So we can do fdisk /mbr on the new disk.

The NT boot is stored on the partition boot sector (drive C), so it will be copied when we use pqmagict.exe to copy the partition from the old disk to the new disk, right? Or wrong?


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[Ghost_Hacker]

Yes, your right. I use Ghost to copy NT partitions (actually the whole disk)to new drives and when it's done they boot just fine.

The only step left is to use newsid to generate a new computer security ID. This step isn't needed if the system is not part of an NT domain.

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"

[Ghost_Hacker]

Hmmmmm after checking I found that you can't use Fdisk /mbr on an NT system. If you do NT disk signatures used for fault tolerance are overwritten. Which can cause other partitions/disk to be unrecognized by the system. You can use an NT resource kit program called Disksave.exe to copy the MBR to a floppy and restore it later. (there are 3rd party programs on the net that do the same thing.)

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"

[Ghost_Hacker]

OK here's some more information for ya Pete. ( I don't think my other post answered all your questions and I wanted to check some things first)


To create the "setup" disk type "winnt /O" this creates the floppies without installing NT. Use "winnt /OX" to create the floppies and install NT.


There are 2 parts to the install of an NT system. The first part is the "text" phase and the second is the "GUI" phase. The "setup disks" are used during the text based part of the install. During this the installer finds and install drivers for devices need for the computer to boot up. After which it finds the partition information for your disk and prepares the disk for the system files. It then builds a small version of the NT kernal which is used to start and run the GUI phase of the install. All the files needed for this are included on the setup disks (or copied to the hard drive if you choose that command line switch) Notice that these disk do not boot the NT kernal but simply build it.

The "boot" floppy on the other hand does boot the NT kernal. If there is a problem with the system files. The boot floppy can't repair or build new ones.

Hope this helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"



[This message has been edited by Ghost_Hacker (edited 04-05-2001).]

[tchris]

I made a boot disk and tried it out. worked fine.

just wondering: If the boot disk boots (how many boots would a boot disk boot if a boot disk... oh never mind) the NT Kernel on my old drive, will a program (ghost) running from that boot disk have problems copying the kernel to the new drive?

many thanks.

[Paleo Pete]

You dare to question the great OZ!!!

Yeah, I happen to know the great Oz is just a short, fat, bald guy with a microphone...(I saw the movie)

Thanks, that pretty much answers my question, I see now it was the difference between booting an OS and booting a machine with no OS...and I still don't know diddly about NT...but I'll get there...

------------------
So many idiots, and only six bullets...
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[Ghost_Hacker]

Damn my covers been blown http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Tchris... I would use a Windows 98 boot disk (or a DOS boot disk) with the Ghost program on it to copy the hard drive. If you don't have a Win98 boot disk go here www.bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com) and pick one up.

Good Luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"

[tchris]

One last question: I have a windows 98 boot disk, but it won't mount the NTFS partitions on the hard drive. I was told this is because of lack of NTFS support in win9x. Will Ghost will run OK, even if the OS doesn't see the drives?

Pete - re: your original post here - The hard drive did come with some software for transfering data. It only works for FAT16 or FAT32 file systems. Mine are all NTFS.

Thank you thank you thank you for all your help. You all are awesome.

[This message has been edited by tchris (edited 04-06-2001).]

[This message has been edited by tchris (edited 04-06-2001).]

[Ghost_Hacker]

Yes, Ghost will work. Even if you can't access the partitions with your OS.

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Comment heard from a Klingon programmer.

"Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak"

[tchris]

great! thanks.