Migrating an OS into a new pc

chopster

I have a friend who is running win98 chinese edition and recently the pc is failing him quite frequently for various reasons. To cut a long story short he has now decided to just get a new pc.

Now here's the thing he does not have the original chinese edition of win98 and there is a program on it that needs it to run , so what would be the best way if possible to migrate the hard disk complete with the OS and all the other stuff on it onto the new pc ?

His current machine is an amd duron would it be easier to do if he found another amd based machine rather than a pentium based one where drivers and all are concerned ?

Thanks.

the_syco

I'm not sure, but can't you just reinstall a normal version of Windows98, and select China in the region options on the install?

chopster

Don't think it's that simple , with all the chinese characters in windows etc. ,the region thing is just for things like clocks,internet news and so forth is it not ?

Dr_MalPractice

a program such as paragon drive backup or similar should do the trick. it"ll do a complete exact copy of the data on your friends drive onto the new drive.

NotMe

Just stick the old harddrive in the new computer and download whatever hardware drivers you need. (Or copy the drive as stated above)

Dr_MalPractice

chopster, correct. support for asian languages is one of the options you have to check when installing windows. it's unchecked over here by default for obvious reasons.
the region thing is just for clocks and sometimes keyboard layouts etc.

chopster

He has backup ghost image of the hard disk , but if he were to let's say just dunk the hd into the new pc i don't think win98 would load up because of the different mobo drivers etc ? Correct me if i'm wrong .

@ Dr M , are you saying there is an option when installing the Uk edition of win98 to install it as a chinese edition as in a check box somewhere ? Hmm , haven't really noticed that one.

osmethod

Personally I'd do it this way...

1. Stick the old disk into the new pc on the secondary ide channel as a master or cable select.

2. Ensure that the new pc isn't allowed boot the new os...!

3. Using ghost or drive image on a floppy boot disk and boot this...

4. Disk Image the old drive to the new drive...

5. When complete turn off and remove old drive...

6. Now start the pc with win98 on new disk and allow to boot completely..

When you boot the new disk in the new pc Windows 98 will just refix itself to suit the new hardware its on. It'll probably reboot 5 or 6 times and you may end up with a low resolution setup.

Make sure that the new pc devices have win98 drivers first. You can then install them correctly when 98 boots up.

osmethod

chopster

Thanks osmethod , again as your step 6 implies this assumes that the os WILL boot up , is this really the case as i was led to believe that this may not be the case because of of the fact of a new mobo and that the boot.ini or whatever wouldn't allow this , again i could be talking codswallop but if you are correct then it's simply a case of putting the old hard disk into the new pc letting it bootup as you say then installing the new mobo drivers when requested.

aidan_walsh

boot.ini is only looking at drives and partitons, as far as I know... So you may need to edit that if you change your drive from master to slave, but other than that I can't think of a reason as to why that would be relevant, especially if you are using the ghosting method.

chopster

cheers all you guys for the prompt replies , as long as the os boots then i can take it from there

osmethod

Windows 95/98/ME don't use boot.ini...

All I can reassure off is that I've tried 95, then 98 on 40 computers twice and it worked similar as I described (cricky 9 years and 6 years ago..LOL). However, i used the english version but I assumming its the same for the chineese version because thats just localised... the functional os is still written in english.

DO NOT just install the old disk as you suggest... There is always the possibly of a fsck up and you need a backup.

Browse google for ghost.exe and you'll find it no prob. Stick it on a win98 boot floppy and image as I eluded to allready...

Worse case scenario - you still have the original...!

osmethod

chopster

Yeah osmethod , as i said he has a ghost image of the system on a separate partition of the same hard disk ( as well as elsewhere) so i suppose i can try and retry as many times as i want as i will be using Hiren's bootcd with ghost.exe already on it ( amongst a thousand other things as you probably know).

osmethod

Providing that is so....LOL

Locate all the Windows 98 drivers for the new speced pc... Network Cards, Graphics, Sound, IDE Controllers, USB, Processor, etc...

This way the program you refer to will be kept intact and any registry settings will be fine...

Let us know how u get on... best of luck...

osmethod