Transfer W98SE to new system

[Intimidator]

What is the best way to transfer a HD that has W98SE and other apps to a new MB or barebones system that has built in video and audio? I don't want to install the OS again and reconfigure all the programs. I problem that I forsee is the drivers will be different from each system.

Do I first uninstall or remove the drivers from the W98SE HD before the transfer?

Is there and easy way to do this?

[Ian]

Is there and easy way to do this?

Yes, its called back up your data and do a fresh install. Trust me, you're going to spend much more time getting your old OS install to run on your new system. Not to mention, it will probably run like crap after the move.
I also recommend upgrading to XP.

[Intimidator]

Thanks Ian....that is what I thought. If I do anything I will move my fathers system to W2K Pro. I am not a big fan of XP.

[LoneWolf]

Believe it or not, I have a way to do this that will work well. Well as in, as well as your system is running now (if it's running like crap, that's what you'll get). We had quite a few situations back in the day where no matter what recommendation we made, a customer didn't want a system reloaded, or they'd lost all their software through carelessness, or they had wierd quirky configs that would be a cast iron pain to set back up. Here's how to do this.

DISCLAIMER: If you bork your box, I am not in ANY way responsible.

For starters, you must boot your system in Safe Mode. I would do this before you move the drive to the new system; reason being that it is easy to forget to do this, and if you forget and boot normally, it will be tough to get this right again. In Safe Mode, go to Device Manager. From there, delete EVERY device from every category. This will take some time, since you have to go one at a time; If Windows prompts you to reboot to complete changes, tell it No, and keep going. When you are done, you should just have a computer with no devices. Shut the computer down.

Migrate the hard disk. Boot in normal mode. The computer will come up in an almost safe-like mode due to having no hardware, and no recognized BIOS in the Device Manager. Run the Add Hardware Wizard, and manually add the ACPI BIOS from the System Devices category. Your system will begin detecting devices one by one once this is added, so make sure you have all the necessary drivers available on hand. Once all devices have been added, you will be all set.

Note, sometimes it's better if you don't have a very clean install, to start from scratch. If you have years of traces of uninstalled programs in your registry and things like that, reinstallation will probably speed things up. But, this method has worked for me time and time again.

[dodecahedron]

interesting.

[pranav81]

I had read somewhere that you can delete the part in registry where all the device information is saved.The when the computer is rebooted it will reinstall all the devices.I dont exactly remember what you should delete to achieve this.



::Pranav::

[LoneWolf]

Thanks Ian....that is what I thought. If I do anything I will move my fathers system to W2K Pro. I am not a big fan of XP.

Why are you not a big fan of XP?

Done right, XP can be faster and better than 2000 easily. Boot time is decidedly faster.

Tuned for performance (read: all the cheesy Luna interface crap turned off) XP is everything Windows 2000 should have been. Admittedly there have been far too many security holes, but Windows 2000 has shared most if not all of those that Windows XP has had, making it no better.

[dodecahedron]

Tuned for performance (read: all the cheesy Luna interface crap turned off)

how do you do that ?

[pranav81]

Yes.You can turn off all the services that are not needed by a normal home user and unload them from memory.Modify the services that some services start when you need them.

Visit www.blackviper.com for details on disabling the services.



::Pranav::