Hard drive case, question #2

[DICKEYBIRD]

I like the HD enclosure idea so well I'm picking up one today after work. Here's what I'd like to do....hopefully you experts can tell me if it'll work.

My old reliable "go-to" computer that all of us at home rely on still runs W98SE. Daughter's new camera has to have at least W2000 Pro. I have a W2000 Pro disc but am skeert to just slap it in and update from W98 to W2000 for fear of losing my data.

I have a good used 20 Gig drive that I want to put in the ext. HD enclosure, reformat it then "clone" the existing 80 Gig drive onto it. I have only 11 Gigs on it now so space shouldn't be a problem.

Once I have the ext HD finished, is it possible to boot from it to test to make sure all works OK, then reformat the original 80 Gig drive, install W2000 fresh and then copy all the data from the 20 gig drive? I'd like to have a back-up drive ready to go in case something blows up and ruins everything.

Someone here at work thought that the clone software (Seagate DiscWizard) wouldn't work going from a larger to smaller drive.

Any pearls of experience out there?

 

[wareagle]

My thoughts: If you are upgrading the OS, then you really don't need all of the associated files and stuff with it, so what you may think about doing is copying all of your needed files (or the whole disc) to your remote drive, then perform your upgrade. Once you get the machine back up and going, see what you have lost (if anything), and then copy it back over to the internal drive.

The other attack to this may be to copy your data over, reformat the internal drive, then start with a clean OS. Reinstall the programs you need and leave out the ones you don't. Then your files could be moved back and you'd be in business.

A word of caution, make sure you have all of your drivers for the hardware components before doing the upgrade. I have a dead box that would be more trouble than it is worth due to not having some of the needed drivers for HW components (the hardware is no longer supported).

I am sure there are easier ways of accomplishing this, and am sure the other members here will have better ideas on how to make it happen.

 

[shred]

You are likely to have to reinstall all your applications and add-ons no matter what, so there's not a lot of point backing all that up... except.. sometimes programs hide things like settings and preferences in their own directories.

So I'd consider backing everything up, and then installing the new Windows somewhere that isn't the same directory as the old one-- that way if the new OS is hosed, you can still probably boot to the old one with a little dinking around. Your PC probably can't boot to the USB drive, so that won't work..

 

[tattoomike68]

I would yank the hard drive and put in a new one and load Win2000 on it, then stick the old one in as a slave drive.

An old hard drive will be happy as a slave so it wont be doing all the work anymore. It probably spun millions of times and is ready to take it easy.

If you want you can throw all the data in a folder on the new drive so you can sort it out, pull it out and store it for safe keeping as a backup. (or just leave it in the case.)

Win 98 is getting a little bit old, its almost 2008! I bet you can run XPpro if you have at least 256 megs of ram.

 

[DICKEYBIRD]

Thanks for the input guys!

I'm steering clear of XP for the moment purely because I already have W2000 and don't won't to go out & pay the $100 or so to put XP on this ol' feller. Funds are limited these days so I'll probably pick up a Dell lease turn in or something in the next few months with XP already loaded.

The 80 Gig Seagate is only a few months old so I'm going to keep it as the primary drive....again not wanting to throw more money at the old box.