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Clone easily Windows 98 and XP in the same computer.


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WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO HAVE THE POSSIBILITY OF SWAPPING TO AN EXACT COPY OF YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM KEPT IN THE SAME HARD DISK DRIVE?

Most users run a single OS and keep all their personal files, photographs, music, letters etc, into C drive.

Any OS is composed of thousands of elements, many of which are read and written again and again, and that means a risk by itself if any write/delete operation fails (i.e. when the computer is accidentally moved while the hard disk is writing).

If you add to it the risk coming from viruses, false install/uninstall operations, the use of a defective program, a mains failure or an incorrect computer switch off, it is easy to understand that the C drive is not a secure place. Any file into it may become deleted or inaccessible, and formatting can also be needed at any moment.

For these reasons you must always preserve updated backups of your personal files and also of the installed OS. There are a lot of utilities for that purposes.

If the OS fails the backup file must be restored before you can use your computer again. That takes time and most probably means unexpected problems.

But Windows allows you to create into your HDD up to three bootable partitions and also an extended data partition with many logical units, and if you use that possibility you are able to implement a cloned OS obtained from the one that you actually use and totally similar to it into a different drive letter, so that you can immediately switch to it by swapping the bootable partition (WinXP) or using the windows bootloader (Windows 98) to go on using your computer without delay.

While running the copy you can fix the original easily using the Windows file manager. You only need to keep a second copy of the clone somewhere else as a backup in order to repair any damaged file, and even to delete the whole OS to rebuild it from scratch as many times as needed.

Windows 98 is an optimal instrument to fix Windows XP because it is not based at all on the NT system used since 2000 by Microsoft for all their products and you repair XP from the outside. Under Windows 98 you can use its Windows mode programs like Explorer, Scandiskw.exe or Msdefrag.exe or the DOS mode ones like Fdisk.exe, Format.com or Dosshell.com, and also run an overwhelming amount of excellent third party maintenance programs like Comparator Pro, Partition Manager or Norton Disk, for Windows, or Bootpart.exe for DOS.

In spite of that, being Windows 98 a classical, tiny and fully integrated member of the Microsoft family, Windows XP allows you to use the windows bootloader to choose at boot, and you can even create a DOS boot floppy by a simple click from the Windows XP file manager.

The purpose of this tutorial is to explain how to obtain a cloned copy of any of both OS, how to make it active and how to swap fast to use it.

Windows 98 can be installed with many modern motherboards which don't provide drivers for it, being that simple install sufficient for cloning, maintenance and repair operations of Windows XP.

Thinking about users who are not able to install Windows 98 for any reason, it is also described in this tutorial the way to create a second active Xp unit by copying the installed one into another primary partition (no need to install XP again), so that at any moment also these users can experiment the freedom of swapping to the copy to go on working and to repair or totally rebuild the original installation.



INDEX OF CONTENTS.-

A.- OBTAIN AND RUN A WINDOWS 98 WORKING COPY.
B.- CREATE A DOUBLEBOOT PRIMARY PARTITION.
C.- OBTAIN AND RUN A SECOND IDENTICAL DOUBLEBOOT PRIMARY PARTITION.
D.- RESURRECT A DEAD BOOTABLE PARTITION.
E.- USE THE WINDOWS BOOTLOADER TO SWAP WIN98/WINXP WHEN BOTH ARE ALREADY INSTALLED INTO BOOTABLE PARTITIONS.
F.- CREATE AND USE A BOOT CD INSTEAD OF THE BOOT FLOPPY.
G.- REBUILD TOTALLY YOUR HARD DISK DRIVE.
H.- CREATE A SECOND WINDOWS XP BY COPYING THE EXISTING ONE.
I.- CREATE AND UPDATE BACKUP FOLDERS FOR BOTH OS.
J.- SWAP BOOTABLE PARTITIONS.
K.- OPTIMIZERS.
L.- MISCELLANEOUS RECOMMENDATIONS.




A.- HOW TO OBTAIN AND RUN A WINDOWS 98 WORKING COPY.
A1.- TRANSFER TO A LOGICAL UNIT OF THE EXTENDED DATA PARTITION.
A1.1 .- BUILDING THE CLONED UNIT.

In order to leave free the C unit to be used by more than one XP units you need to transfer the Windows 98 folders to a logical unit of the data partition so that it can be used indistinctively from any bootable partition using the windows bootloader. It can be done as follows:
- Download and install the free editor Notepad++, preferably an older version.
- Copy C:\Windows with subfolders and also any other Win98 dependent folder into any logical unit of the data partition (i.e. D:\), but Temporary Internet Files, History, Sysbckup, Recent, Cookies and Temp, and also excepting "Win386.swp" and any files with the extensions log, tmp, and bak.
- Remove all attributes from all the D:\Windows main folder files (no subfolders).
- Run Notepad++, open all D:\Windows "*.ini" and *.dat " files together, then replace in all them C:\ by D:\, save changes and close Notepad++.
- Replace the drive letter into all links to reallocated programs.


A1.2 .- BOOTING THE CLONED UNIT FROM THE HDD.
- Edit Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and Msdos.sys to replace C:\ by D:\.
- Open Msdos.sys and replace "HostWinBootDrv=C" by "HostWinBootDrv=D".
- Reboot and Windows 98 will be running on drive D, using drive C only for booting.


A1.3.- BOOTING THE CLONED UNIT FROM A FLOPPY DISK.
- Format a floppy disk using Windows 98 and copy into it Io.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and Msdos.sys, edited as said in the precedent paragraph.
- Even when the active primary partition keeps appearing as C , this boot floppy works as active primary partition, and therefore Windows 98 can be booted without using any boot file of the HDD.
- The floppy can also be used as a backup to rebuild any damaged or accidentally deleted boot file.


A2.- TRANSFER TO ANOTHER PRIMARY PARTITION.
In the case that you don't intend to use two XP units you can create a second bootable partition for Windows 98 very easily, as follows:
- Copy into it the whole C: drive. You can do it in DOS mode using the DOS freeware program XXCOPY.EXE. You can find its last version for Windows 98/ME at http://www.xxcopy.com/download/xxfw2965.zip
- Reboot using a DOS floppy and make active the new primary partition by running Fdisk.exe (when the primary partition belongs to a different HDD you must swap the HDD at BIOS first).
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Execute in the command line this order:
sys a: c:
- Withdraw the floppy and reboot.
- Label both primary partitions so that you always know which one is working as C:\. You can use the file manager to do it.



B.- HOW TO CREATE A DOUBLEBOOT PRIMARY PARTITION.
B1.- IF WINDOWS 98 IS NOT INSTALLED.

- Install Windows 98 into a logical unit from the extended data partition, to allow it to be shared by different primary drives. Being Windows XP the most used OS, we preserve the bootable partitions solely for Windows XP and all the boot files of both OS.
- If your computer memory is higher than 512 GB the install program gives you a "Lack of memory" message and stops the install process. You can fix it following the instructions given at www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=129983
- The install process is always done in VGA mode. If don't have a video driver, you can download the universal video drivers VBE.VXD and VBEMP.DRV it from http://www.bearwindows.boot-land.net/vbe9x.htm
- If you use Windows 98 as a Windows XP helper you don't need any other drivers.
- If you can't install Windows 98 because you use a SATA drive, a too big HDD or NTFS file system you can find solutions in other threads of this forum. You can also find other generic drivers which could fit your needs.


B2.- IF WINDOWS 98 IS ALREADY INSTALLED AT C.
- Use the procedure described at A1 to transfer Win98 to any logical drive of the extended data partition, keeping the existing boot files into drive C. This drive letter belongs to the primary partition and will be solely used for WinXP and the doubleboot files.
- Boot D:\Windows and delete C:\Windows using the Windows file manager . If the deletion is complete it is sure that the D copy works OK.
- If C:\Windows doesn't allow to be deleted completely (it rarely happens, but may eventually occur) run regedit.exe and search "C:\Windows" all along the registry data. Edit any occurrence that you find to replace manually "C:\Windows" by "D:\ Windows". After that you won't find any difficulty for a total deletion.


B3.- BEWARE BEFORE GOING ON, IN BOTH CASES:
- The boot files Io.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat, Config.sys and Msdos.sys must always be kept in C. You need them for the doubleboot system.
- Copy into an empty floppy those five files. This floppy can be used in the future to boot the installed Windows 98 in case of failure of the normal booting from the HDD.
- It is very convenient to delete all "Recycled" folders at Windows 98 startup, to avoid loosing time while complying with the message that invites us to do it manually (under XP there's no problem with it). To do it you should include into Autoexec.bat the following lines:

Deltree /Y C:\Recycled> Nul
Deltree /Y D:\Recycled> Nul
Deltree /Y E:\Recycled> Nul
...
(and all the remaining unit letters of the HDD).

- After all this, you can proceed to install Windows XP normally in the C: drive.


B4.- END OF THE INSTALL PROCESS: THE WINDOWS BOOTLOADER.
- At the end of the install process the windows bootloader will appear allowing you to choose between XP or Windows 98, being the first the default OS.
- If it doesn't appear, remove all attributes from "boot.ini", increase the value of "timeout = 0" to 5 or more, and reboot.



C.- HOW TO OBTAIN AND RUN A SECOND IDENTICAL DOUBLEBOOT PRIMARY PARTITION.
In the precedent paragraphs we have described the way of having two Windows 98 units and how to implement a Win98/XP doubleboot system. Now we shall explain how to create an always ready copy of the whole doubleboot partition.


C1 .- NEEDED ELEMENTS.
- The HDD, preferably ATA or PATA (you can find in this forum the way to use also SATA), must be divided into up to three bootable primary partitions and one data extended partition. The data extended partition is able to be divided into several logical units. Any bootable partition becomes drive C when it works as active unit, but the logical units of the data partition preserve always their own drive letter.
- To use both OS you must use the FAT32 format. Even when the XP file manager has no problem at all while using big FAT32 units, it only allows formatting as FAT32 under 32GB. If you wish to create bigger FAT32 units you can do it by using fdisk.exe from DOS or Partition Manager under Windows 98 or Windows XP. Remember that you must use the same procedures if you need to reformat them afterwards preserving FAT32.
- We need a normal DOS boot floppy, into which has to be included the program bootpart.exe, freeware, which can be downloaded from http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
- We must create a batch command file to run this program, that is a text file named "Repair.bat" into the same DOS boot floppy, copying into it the following lines:

@echo off
echo Restoring Master Boot Record...
pause
FDISK /MBR
echo Starting bootpart...
pause
SYS A: C:
pause
BOOTPART WINXP BOOT:C:
pause
BOOTPART WIN98 C:\BOOTSECT.W98 "Windows 98"



- Bootpart.exe and "Repair.bat" must be also copied into the Windows 98 "Command" folder, so that you can run them afterwards from the DOS command line.
- Finally we must configure the Windows file manager properly so that all hidden files are shown (by default you don't see and can't copy them).


C2.- INSTALLATION OF THE WINDOWS XP COPY.
- Run WinXP, create a text file and label it "Unmount.reg".
- Copy into this text file all the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control]
"FirmwareBootDevice"=""
"SystemBootDevice"=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control]
"FirmwareBootDevice"=""
"SystemBootDevice"=""
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control]
"FirmwareBootDevice"=""
"SystemBootDevice"=""



- Double click on "Unmount.reg" twice in order to unmount all mounted devices.
- Reboot and choose Windows 98 at the doubleboot screen.
- Configure the file manager properly so that all hidden and system files are shown. If you don't see you can't copy them.
- Delete C:\pagefile.sys.
- Search and delete all log (*. log), tmp (*. tmp), and bak (*. bak) files of C disk and all the existing "Temporary Internet Files", "Temp" and "Cookies" folders that you can find into "Documents and Settings".
- Copy into the free primary partition first the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini and Videorom.bin, and after that all folders excepting "System Volume Information" and the Recycle folder.
- Using the file manager, format the second primary partition and all the logical units of the extended data partition as FAT32.
- Use the file manager to copy first into the second primary partition the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini, Videorom.bin, Bootsect.w98, Io.sys, Msdos.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat and Config.sys. After that copy all other folders of the first primary partition to the second one.
- Edit "boot.ini" in the second primary partition to adjust the partition number, i.e if the number is 2, the new text will be:
(multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS)
- The partition number can be found by running fdisk.exe from DOS, or Partition Manager from Windows.


C3.- BOOTING THE COPY OF THE PRIMARY PARTITION.
- Insert the DOS boot floppy.
- Reboot while keeping pressed F12. Boot devices will appear in the screen. Choose Floppy and press "Enter". The computer will reboot using the DOS boot floppy as boot device (if this doesn't work in your computer change the boot order in the BIOS to set the floppy drive as first boot device, and reboot afterwards).
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the other primary partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Run "Repair.bat"
- Remove the floppy and reboot. Windows XP2 will work just like XP1.
- To swap partitions afterwards do as explained later at paragraph J.



D.- HOW TO RESURRECT A DEAD BOOTABLE PARTITION.
- Boot the other primary partition and format the inactive bootable partition as FAT32.
- Copy first into the formatted partition the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini, Videorom.bin, Bootsect.w98, Io.sys, Msdos.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat and Config.sys.
- After that, copy all remaining files and folders.
- Insert the DOS boot diskette and reboot.
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the rebuilt bootable partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Run "Repair.bat".
- Withdraw the floppy and reboot.



E.- HOW TO USE THE WINDOWS BOOTLOADER TO SWAP WIN98/WINXP WHEN BOTH ARE ALREADY INSTALLED INTO BOOTABLE PARTITIONS.
- Keep active the XP bootable partition and paste into it the Windows 98 boot files Autoexec.bat, Config.sys, Msdos.sys, Io.sys and Command.com.
- Transfer Windows 98 to a logical unit of the extended data partition following the instructions given above at paragraphs A1.1 and A1.2.
- Get a DOS boot floppy and include into it the program bootpart.exe, freeware, which can be downloaded from http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
- Create into the floppy a batch file to run this program, that is a text file named "Repair.bat" copying into it the following lines:

@echo off
echo Restoring Master Boot Record...
pause
FDISK /MBR
echo Starting bootpart...
pause
SYS A: C:
pause
BOOTPART WINXP BOOT:C:
pause
BOOTPART WIN98 C:\BOOTSECT.W98 "Windows 98"



- Insert the DOS boot floppy.
- Reboot while keeping pressed F12. Boot devices will appear in the screen. Choose Floppy and press "Enter". The computer will reboot using the DOS boot floppy as boot device (if this doesn't work in your computer change the boot order in the BIOS to set the floppy drive as first boot device, and reboot afterwards).
- Reboot again. The windows bootloader must be shown at start, allowing you to choose between XP or Windows 98, being the first the default OS.
- If it doesn't appear, remove all attributes from "boot.ini", increase the value of "timeout = 0" to 5 or more, and reboot.



F. - HOW TO CREATE A BOOT CD TO USE IT INSTEAD OF THE BOOT FLOPPY.
As already said, you can use a floppy drive to work as bootable partition instead of the disk primary partition defined as active if the system fails at booting due to a damaged boot sector. This damage may be due to different causes like viruses, malfunctioning of a program or false install or removal operations. The only thing that we find is a black screen and a message telling us that our HDD is not valid.
The damage can be fixed using a floppy to boot Windows 98 to run afterwards “Repair.bat” (B.1).
For different reasons you may prefer to have also, or instead of the floppy, a CD boot disk, i.e. if you leave permanently the CD drive as first boot device to boot faster, if the floppy drive is damaged and of course if you don’t have any floppy device at all.
You can create a bootable CD for each one of the units in which both operating systems are working this way:


F1.- HOW TO CREATE A BOOT CD FOR WINDOWS 98.
- Insert the Windows 98 boot floppy (A1.3).
- Open NERO in the option BOOT CD-ROM, and keep unit A: as the source of boot files.
- Copy all the boot floppy files to the CD root using the Nero windows.
- Burn the CD.


F2.- HOW TO CREATE A BOOT CD FOR EACH ONE OF THE TWO XP UNITS.
- Insert an empty floppy formatted under XP.
- Copy from C: into it the files NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI .
- Edit BOOT.INI to establish timeout=0, and delete any mention to Windows 98.
- Open NERO in the option BOOT CD-ROM, and keep unit A: as source of boot files.
- Burn the CD.
- The floppy can also be used as boot device.
- Mind to use always the boot device made for the present active partition. The use of the other one would produce damages in the registry.



G.- HOW TO REBUILD TOTALLY YOUR HARD DISK DRIVE .
It is very convenient to remember that even when the doubleboot and doublepartition systems give us great possibilities to recover our computer from most damages, total security never exists, no matter how many protections you implement or the OS that you use, and for this reason it is absolutely necessary to keep copies of everything out of the current HDD and to update them as regularly as possible.
Excellent for this purpose are pendrives and external hard disks. CD or DVD disks can also be used, but in this case it is better to compress previously the backup files using .zip or .rar format.
If you have such backups, you can rebuild totally from scratch your whole HDD in a fast and secure way doing as follows:

G1.- PREPARE:
- If the motive of the rebuild operation are the effects of a virus, it could be convenient to withdraw the battery for some seconds to clean the BIOS.
- Insert the DOS boot floppy and boot.
- Run Fdisk to delete the two bootable partitions and the extended data partition. After deletion, create all three partitions again. Don't forget to create again the same logical units that you had into the extended data partition.
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Format only the first bootable partition.
- Install Windows XP into the first bootable partition from the install disk (at this stage we use it only as a provisional OS to start the rebuilding).
- Mind to configure the Windows file manager properly so that all hidden files are shown.


G2.- REBUILD EVERYTHING BUT THE FIRST BOOTABLE PRIMARY PARTITION:
- Using the file manager, format the second bootable partition and all the logical units of the extended data partition as FAT32.
- Use the file manager to copy first into the second bootable partition the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini, Videorom.bin, Bootsect.w98, Io.sys, Msdos.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat and Config.sys. After that, restore all folders of the same drive.
- Restore from their copies all files and folders into the logical units of the extended data partition.
- Insert the DOS floppy and reboot.
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the other bootable partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Run "Repair.bat", withdraw the boot floppy and reboot again. Windows XP will appear, working normally from the second bootable partition.


G3.- REBUILD THE FIRST BOOTABLE PRIMARY PARTITION:
- Using the file manager, format the first bootable partition as FAT32.
- Use the file manager to copy first into the first bootable partition the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini, Videorom.bin, Bootsect.w98, Io.sys, Msdos.sys, Command.com, Autoexec.bat and Config.sys. After that, restore all folders of the same drive.
- Insert the DOS floppy and reboot.
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the inactive bootable partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Run "Repair.bat", withdraw the boot floppy and reboot again.
- Windows XP works now from the first bootable partition, as if nothing had happened.



H.- HOW TO CREATE A SECOND WINDOWS XP BY COPYING THE EXISTING ONE.
Even when the doubleboot system is no doubt a great advantage for cloning and maintenance of XP, sometimes it is convenient to have a second Windows XP without Windows 98. You can do it without installing again, by simply copying the installed one, as follows:

H1.- NEEDED ELEMENTS.-
- The HDD must have at least a free bootable partition. You can create it easily using Partition Manager to reduce the size of the existing primary partition and create into the left space the new primary one, formatting it afterwards as FAT32 or NTFS (preferably the file system used in the original).
- Remember that before any manipulation of the HDD it is convenient to make a backup of everything into an external HDD, DVD, CD or pendrive.
- You need a DOS boot floppy, including into it the program bootpart.exe, freeware, which can be downloaded from http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm
-Into this floppy you need to create a batch command file to to build the boot sectors, called i.e. "Boot.bat", copying into it the following lines:

@echo off
BOOTPART WINXP BOOT:C:


- Finally you need a Live CD for file management operations. You can find lots of them in the Internet (look at Wikipedia for "Live CD"). Any of them is valid whenever its file manager allows seeing hidden and system files, because if you don't see you can't copy them.


H2.- INSTALLATION OF THE WINDOWS XP COPY.-
- Create a text file and copy into it all the following lines:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]



- Label the text file properly to be used as registry script, i.e. "Unmount.reg"
- Double click on it twice in order to unmount all mounted devices.
- Insert the Live CD.
- Reboot while keeping pressed F12. Boot devices will appear in the screen. Choose CD and press "Enter". The computer will reboot using the Live CD as boot device (if this doesn't work in your computer change the boot order in the BIOS to set the CD drive as first boot device).
- Using the file manager delete C:\pagefile.sys.
- Search and delete all log (*. log), tmp (*. tmp), and bak (*. bak) files of C disk and all the existing "Temporary Internet Files", "Temp" and "Cookies" folders that you can find into "Documents and Settings".
- Copy into the free bootable partition first the root files Ntdetect.com, Ntldr, Boot.ini and Videorom.bin, and after that all folders excepting "System Volume Information" and the Recycle folder.
- Edit "boot.ini" in the second bootable partition to cope with the partition number, which can be found easily by running Partition Manager while using Windows or the interactive mode of fdisk.exe while using the boot floppy under DOS. Being "n" the partition number, the edited text will be:
(multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(n)\WINDOWS)


H3.- BUILD THE BOOT SECTORS AND START USING THE CLONED WINDOWS 7.
- Insert the DOS boot floppy and reboot. as said in the precedent paragraph, now setting Floppy as first boot device.
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the cloned bootable partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Keep inserted the floppy and reboot.
- Run "Boot.bat"
- Remove the floppy and reboot. The cloned copy will be working just like the original.
- To swap partitions do as explained later at paragraph J.



I.- HOW TO CREATE AND UPDATE BACKUP FOLDERS FOR BOTH OS.
I.1.- CREATE THE BACKUP FOLDERS.
I.1.1.- FOR WINDOWS 98.
- Run Windows XP.
- Delete the swap file "Win386.swp" and also all log (*. log), tmp (*. tmp), and bak (*. bak) files into the Windows folder, and also the subfolders Temporary Internet Files, History, Sysbckup, Recent, Cookies and Temp.
- Create a folder somewhere in the extended data partition, preferably into a different logical unit, named i.e. "Win98 clean" and copy the whole Windows folder into it.

I.1.2.- FOR WINDOWS XP.
- Run Windows XP and double click on "Unmount.reg" twice, so that the registry becomes modified.
- Reboot and run Windows 98.
- Clean the C unit as said in C2.
- Create a folder somewhere in the extended data partition named i.e. "XP clean" and copy the whole clean C drive into it.


I.2.- UPDATE OF THE BACKUP FOLDERS WHILE FAST CLEANING THE OS.
- Run a different disk unit, no matter if it is Windows 98 or XP.
- Run ComparatorPro and compare every used folder against its backup copy.
- Remove all new unnecessary or unwanted files from the used unit.
- Copy to the backup folder all new known files.
- Update the backup folder by replacing all modified files by the new ones.


I.3.- RECOMMENDED COMPLEMENTARY CARES.
- For increased security it is convenient to keep a second copy of both backup folders on CD, pendrive or external HDD, to be used if the first one is occasionally damaged, preferably using .zip or .rar format so that each and every file keeps its own attributes.
- You can defragment all HDD drives by a single click under Windows 98 by running Msdefrag.exe (the ME version is compatible and faster). This utility, as you all know, also checks the HDD and demands the use of Scandisk.exe when needed.



J.- HOW TO SWAP BOOTABLE PARTITIONS.
J.1.- BY USING "PARTITION MANAGER" FROM THE ACTIVE XP OR WINDOWS 98.
- Run the program and click "set inactive" the current bootable partition and "set active" the other one. Be careful not to leave both active neither both inactive.


J.2.- BY USING THE DOS BOOT FLOPPY.
- Execute fdisk on interactive mode to make active the other bootable partition, or do it from the command line using the following command (being n the partition number):
fdisk/activate:n
- Withdraw the floppy and reboot.


J.3.- RECOMMENDED CARES.
- In order to know which one of the bootable partitions is active and running as C, it is very convenient that you label the drives i.e. as "XP1" and "XP2". You can do it easily using the file manager.



K.- OPTIMIZERS.-
To optimize the OS you may download and run the following freeware:
- "Autoruns", to detect underground run programs and deactivate unwanted ones. Any unwanted entry may be deactivated by simply unchecking its box.
- "Ccleaner", HDD disk cleaner.
- "Wise Disk Cleaner", HDD disk cleaner.
- "Wise Registry Cleaner", registry cleaner and defragmenter.
- "Disk Defrag", fast HDD defragmenter and optimizer.
- "Wise Data Recovery", to undelete erased files.
- "Wise Uninstaller", for complete removal of unwanted applications from disk and registry.
- "Displayset", freeware to modify every item of your desktop.



L.- MISCELLANEOUS RECOMMENDATIONS.
- If you've got two HDD units into your computer, you can try to create the XP2 clone into a bootable partition of the second HDD as said, in order to switch to it in case of failure of the first HDD. If your hardware allows it, this would mean an increased security because you could replace your current HDD in a fast and easy way.
- Never format a bootable partition: you would destroy the partition boot record and it will be dead. Use instead of it the DOS program DELTREE.EXE. To run it from Windows XP you must first copy the program into the Windows\System32 folder and include in the command line the whole path. I.e. to delete drive F you must execute from the command line:
C:\Windows\System32\Deltree.exe /Y F:\*.*
- You can copy in batch mode whole folders or drives using the freeware program XXCOPY.EXE. There are more recent versions of it for Windows XP, but the last version that works OK with Win 9x/ME is 2.96.5 which can be found at http://www.xxcopy.com/download/xxfw2965.zip

- And finally, to optimize a XP laptop inner temperature you may use any vacuum cleaner to extract the inner accumulated dust through the ventilation holes under it with the computer turned off, being this specially recommended in the event of overheating.



REMARKS.

This first post only included initially the Windows 98 cloning.

All paragraphs concerning Windows XP have been created later in succesive editions of the original text by choosing, collecting, resuming and putting together many ideas suggested by other members in this thread.

That's why you may find more extensive details about all this all along the following posts in the words of their authors and contributors. You may also find their excellent explanations of the theory of it all and other alternative ways. I have only resumed here my own experience in the search for the easiest path, in the wish of being useful to other members or visitors of this forum.

Thanks to jaclaz, dencorso and all other members for their ideas! I have learnt a lot: without their contribution I would never have reached to do this. :thumbup

Please post in this thread any new idea about how to do it better. Thank you very much.

Edited by cannie
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When cloning Windows 98, for increased security you may copy C:\Program Files and C:\Mydocs to D, or E or any other drive and afterwards use COA2 (freeware) to change the adress in the register and links. You may afterwards erase both folders in C. This way you are able to start Windows using your boot floppy even after eliminating and creating again the main partition if system crashes (fdisk, freeware) using normally Windows even without formatting C drive (you may format it afterwards much faster using Windows explorer). Of course, you must keep always saved in any other drive a .zip or .rar copy of C:\Windows.

Cheers :rolleyes:

Edited by cannie
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Hi!

You forgot one very important step...

Windows 98SE will NOT copy the "WIN386.SWP" swap file inside the "Windows" directory - it will stop the copy process when it encounters this file. In order to copy the Windows directory properly, you need to:

(1) Create a "Windows" directory on the destination (D:) drive in Explorer

(2) Go into the "Windows" directory on the source (C:) drive and select everything BUT the "WIN386.SWP" file, and finally

(3) Copy/Paste the selected files.

Hope this is helpful!

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Hi Roostron!

It's years since I use this backup system. I have changed my HD 3 times and never had to reinstall.

At present I use 3 drives sharing the same Mydocs and Program Files folders (C,D and E) and a small drive F for temporary files.

I moved the .swp file to f:\, using Mydocs (right click) >Virtual memory.

I also moved there the folders Temporary Internet Files (IE options) and Temp (Autoexec.bat).

I format (fast) F:\ at every boot using autoexec.bat (it takes 3 seconds), so I never have any problem at all coming from disk fragmentation or temporary files.

I use 2 external HD connected through an USB2 IDE internal device (it increases 50 times the transfer speed), which uses the drivers included in the Unofficial SP2.

Thank you for the reminder.

Greetings. :rolleyes:

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An excellent instrument to clone a whole folder or a complete drive:

http://www.grigsoft.com/wndsync.htm

It runs perfect using Win98SE-SP2, even when it is made for XP and later.

In the case of cloning a folder you must create previouly the empty destination folder.

Extremely fast.

Hope this helps.

Edited by cannie
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Hi SlugFiller!

Of course, you are right!: Explorer always works. I'll try to explain you what I really meant:

I discovered this forum very recently and found no mention at all to cloning, and that's what made me start this thread by copying the old note that a proffesional gave me years ago, so that others could take profit of it. In fact I've not had any problem at all using indisctinctively 3 drives.

What I really mean to post if anybody knows is any complementary idea, such as those that I had by myself after I was tought, i.e. using F: drive for swapping, temp and IE Temporary Files and formatting it at every boot using Autoexec.bat (format /q).

I've already learnt here the use of XXcopy for cloning using DOS and BIOS posted by another member of this forum, which also is a really interesting way of cloning.

Maybe there are other interesting ideas which I don't know, and that's what made me write the words that you quote. Hope that it helps.

Cheers! :sneaky:

Edited by cannie
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  • 2 weeks later...

I use DriveSpace. Not because I don't have enough space, but because I can create (or restore) a backup copying just one file - drivespace.000. It can be copied from Windows. ;)

If you decide to try this, make sure you have attrib.exe on host drive in case you need to restore a backup. Drvspace.000 is hidden and read-only.

Edited by Marius '95
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