# DOS Boot Disk question



## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

I hope I am posting this in the correct forum. 

What I need is a way to create a DOS Boot Disk with which I can access other drives after I boot with that disk. I am running Win XP SP 3. I went to "My Computer", clicked on the letter for my floppy drive (A, right clicked and chose Format with the option to create an MS-Dos boot disk. That seemed to work just fine except that when I boot up with that disk I can only access the A; drive. I cannot access the C: drive nor can I access my CD drive. 

Why I need to do this is as follows, in case anyone has another approach. I have a 40 Gb hard drive which is just way too small. I have purchased a 320 Gb drive with which I'd like to replace the 40 Gb drive. I have a copy of Ghost 7 on a CD to use to make an image of the 40 Gb drive and place the image on the 320 Gb drive. The problem is that in order to use Ghost 7 I am told that I need to boot up in DOS and then run Ghost from the CD. However, since I cannot access either my C: drive or the CD drive when I boot with the DOS disk, I can't do what I am trying to do. 

Any help or suggestions that you can give would be most appreciated.


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## leroys1000 (Aug 16, 2007)

If you have ghost 7 installed in XP,start it and
look for a menu entry that says create bootable
rescue media.
Click that and create a disk.
Should be able to create a CD with the DOS level
ghost on it.
Need a CD burner to make a CD.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Thanks for your reply. I did not know that one can "install" Ghost 7. I will try to find out if that will work with the CD I have.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

I must not have a full version of Ghost 7 because it does not install. Any other ideas?


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

Ghost 7 is very, very old. The problem you're running into is that DOS cannot read NTFS partitions which is most likely what your Windows XP drive is formatted with. I highly doubt that version would even recognize a 320GB drive. You need to use a newer imaging application. Elvandil has a post with links to several such applications.

http://forums.techguy.org/6817522-post4.html


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Thanks. I just went to the Elvandil post and tried to read about some of the free programs suggested there. Unfortunately, I do not understand much, if anything, that I read there. At one time I was actually a fairly decent computer professional, but that was quite a few years ago and a lot of the terminology is very intimidating to me now. I hate to have to purchase a newer copy of Ghost, but that may be my best bet at this point.


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

If you have a question about an application, ask. Acronis is the most popular such program, and is very easy to use. I can assure you that you'd have to learn just as much with the most recent version of Ghost as compared to the version you currently have.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Thanks. I did read something about Acronis. If I end up having to select between Ghost and Acronis I will probably go with the one that is least expensive. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions.


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

If one of your drives is a Seagate or Maxtor (old or new, either one), you can download Seagate's DiscWizard and use it for free. It's based on Acronis True Image.
Once installed, you can create a bootable CD you would boot with to clone the drive.

Click the Learn More link for the user guide PDF, or right click and save a copy on your PC.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Unfortunately I do not know the manufacturer of the 40GB hard drive that came with my Dell. I do know that the new, 320 GB hard drive is made by Western Digital and the packaging says it is a PATA EIDE 3.5 inch WD Caviar SE 320GB EIDEHD 7200/8MB/ATA-100


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## TheOutcaste (Aug 8, 2007)

The Western Digital Data Lifeguard tools has a basic disk to disk cloning tool, but I've never used it.
You can download it from here if it wasn't included with the new drive. They have both a DOS floppy version and CD Version. The DOS version would be best for copying the old drive to the new.

If you look in Device Manager, it may show you the model number of the 40 GB drive. If it starts with ST, it's a Seagate; Maxtor aren't so easy to recognize though, but it may just say Maxtor as well, or something easily identifiable, like Quantum or Fireball.

Right click My Computer, click *Manage*, click *Device Manager*, expand *Disk Drives*, and take a gander.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Device Manager says WDC WD400BB-75CLB0 so I am guessing that means that the existing 40 GB internal hard drive is also Western Digital. I think I will have to look into the WD Digital Data Lifeguard Tools that you mentioned.


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## Compiler (Oct 11, 2006)

Sand$ said:


> Thanks. I did read something about Acronis. If I end up having to select between Ghost and Acronis I will probably go with the one that is least expensive. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions.


I recommend Macrium Reflect its free and easy/flexible to use. Its better than GHOST since it can run from the Windows desktop. It works like a charm too. Remember, while using any drive image (Ghost included) you must output the file SOMEWHERE. It is NOT a DRIVE Copy program. Many NEW HDs that come retail such as Seagate/Maxtor includes a Drive Copy utility. You boot with the CD-ROM, it'll format and copy data to the new drive... But I've found that it tends to SCREW UP!

WindowsXP boots up, but some programs have problems.

So here is Reflect http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp (Thanks crjdriver)
Steps to transferring your HD (I assume you're on XP?)
1 - With power off, attach your new 320GB to your computer, you may have to the IDE connector that your DVD/CD drives uses. But use the NEW cable that came with your 320GB drive. (Ground yourself by touching the PSU - then unlplug it - touch the PSU from time to time)

The step above, you'd have to do anyways, no matter what software you use.

2 - Power up XP. We need to partition your new HD. Because your 40GB is full - you'll NEED to store your image file somewhere. I prefer to store data like videos and music in another partition anyways. 
Go into Drive manager: Start>Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management (WOW! With AmigaOS and Mac OS - its far easier)

3 - Select the new 320GB HD and create 2 partitions. I'd say, make a 100/220 split. Create the 100GB first, then whatever is left - use it up. Go ahead and quick format them too. Lets say the letters are E: & F:

4 - Run Reflect - tell it to make a DRIVE image from your 40GB (C and store the file to the 200+ GB (F Drive.

This should take about 5mins per 15GB. Much faster than the Drive Copy tools.

5 - When done. Tell Reflect to UNPACK the image file (you JUST made on F: drive) to the 100GB (E drive. This should take about 2~4mins per 15GB.

When done. Power down the system. For testing, plug your new drive's IDE connector to where your old one is. And boot up with the new drive.

If one right, your PC should boot a bit faster and look and work like before. If all is well, shut down, remove the 40GB and finish putting the new one in its place.

This configuration is based on expecting your computer to have (2) two IDE connectors.
#1 - is for the HD
#2 - is for your optical (lets say DVD-RW)

So you're unplug the DVD-RW and put the 320 into #2.
When done, unplug 40GB from #1 and put the 320 in its place. Re-attach the DVD back into #2.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Compiler,

Thank you so much for your long and very detailed instructions. I still haven't gotten up the courage to open the box and peek inside. Everything is under my desk and there's so much to unplug...I haven't wanted to do that until I am fairly sure that I can replace the 40GB drive with a 320 GB drive. So at this point I don't know if I have two IDE cables or not. My CD drive is R/W, but the DVD drive is read-only. I definitely need to find out about the cable situation fairly soon.

Since I last posted I found out about some Western Digital free software, Data Lifeguard Tools 11, which sounded as if it might work for me, especially since the new drive, and probably the 40 GB drive, are both WD drives. But I asked a question at the WD website and they told me that their software may not work if my PC was made by a major manufacturer since they usually add a separate "restore or diagnostic partitiion." My PC is a DELL and I do indeed have a separate partition which has some Dell stuff on it, so that made me conclude that the WD software would not work in my situation. Do you know if having a restore/diagnostic partition on the 40 GB drive would also be a problem for the Macrium software that you are suggesting?

Then a friend of mine asked if the BIOS in my computer can actually support a 320 GB hard drive. I have no idea if that could be a problem or how to find out what the BIOS can support. Do you know if there is a possibility that the BIOS would not support a 320 GB drive and if so, how would I find out? I guess I don't want to get too deep into this project, i.e. opening up the box, if it can be determined in advance that the whole thing won't work because of some pre-existing limitation with my computer.

Thanks so much for your very nice, detailed instructions. I really hope I will be able to complete this project because I'd love to put off purchasing a new computer until the next version of Windows has come out and had some time to get the bugs worked out of it.


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## Compiler (Oct 11, 2006)

Can't answer that. We don't know anything about your Dell. 5 years old is vague. But if its a typical P4, it should.

My sig links to PC-Wizard, Download it. PCWizard should tell you the model number and what kind of slots / CPU type, etc.

It should be a typical P4 or Celeron (with P4 design) and have two IDE connectors. By knowing the model # - we'll know what it looks like, etc.

Do you still have your system restore CDs? They are blue & white.
The hidden restore partitions are both good & bad. Useless if theres an HD failure, troublesome when you want to upgrade to a new HD. But Reflect can make an image of that partition as well. I don't know how well it works because the "restore" partition had failed on the original HD/PC anyways. 

If you have the CDs... then perhaps some house cleaning is required and do a clean install of XP. Remove the Dell junk and start fresh. If its been a few years since you've started with a clean XP, it could improve things. I sometimes find that SP3 for XP to slow things down (boot up/shut down) and with a 5 year old PC, ignore it. if you have a good firewall and AV software - SP3 isn't going to protect you that much better.

If you have the SP3 CDs... plug in the new drive (with new cable) into where your HD is connected to (IDE #1 on the motherboard) and go from there.

I personally prefer to have at least 2 partitions for a hard drive. Remember the Make an Image issue above? Well, kind of hard to do that with a single drive with 1 partition.

Like with the previous instructions - you should use drive manager to create the partitions before using the restore CDs or use the included WD Data tools and let it create the partitions (100/220) and then boot with the Dell CDs.

If you don't have the CDs. Ask around for a OEM XP disc. As techs, we have a few CDs around to work around such issues.  This is one of those STUPID microsoft things that makes life harder.


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## Sand$ (Jul 10, 2006)

Thank you again for your very helpful info. Because I am so low on hard disk space, I am trying to avoid downloading anything else. I can get the following info from Control Panel/System. Is this enough info to answer questions about the BIOS, IDE cables, etc?

Dell Dimension Dim 4300 Intel (R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.60 GHz
1.59 GHz, 1 GB of RAM

If this is not enough to answer the relevant questions, I will try to download and run the software you suggested. Thank you.


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## Compiler (Oct 11, 2006)

Why is your CPU coming in at 1.6ghz? it should be 2~3Ghz. Unless its running slower because its idle.

Clean out some HD space... also so you're not saving/coping junk:
With Windows explorer, see how big they are, and delete all content in them:
C:\Documents and Settings\<user account>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files
C:\Documents and Settings\<user account>\Local Settings\Temp
C:\Windows\Temp

You may also consider deleting the backup files of your patches.
If your PC is running fine today, turn off System Restore and turn it back on. Also make sure its set to something like 1000mb.

System restore (Right click on MY COMPUTEr - click on System Restore)

If you've not cleared out the junk in years, there will be a lot there.

PCWizard will tell you more info... but the question is, do you have your restore CDs?

What I would do:
1 - Do a clean install on the new drive from the CDs.
2 - Move the old 40GB drive into a $20 external drive case - use it as a backup.
3 - Copy your data from the old 40GB drive back to the computer's new HD.


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