Full Title

How to upgrade hard drives on single drive machines, transferring entire operating systems, software and personal settings from old disks to new disks, and creating multi-boot operating systems in the process.

Encompassing…

• How to deal with missing installation CDs when upgrading your laptop/PC.
  
• Hardware hash component values and avoiding the Microsoft Product Re-activation Wizard making your software inoperable.
  
• Upgrading your pre-existing hard drive when you are missing essential hardware components (in particular for laptops, a 2.5” IDE ATA hard drive caddy, or a 2.5” - 3.5” IDE connector).
  
• How to set up any number of Operating Systems on a Single Multi-Boot IDE Hard Drive system.

Disclaimer: If you choose to set up your system based on the guidelines discussed within this document, we must remind you that you do so at your own risk. On more than one occasion there are practices employed here which are not wholly recommended by your software and hardware manufacturers. During these procedures, you are not only capable of losing all your data, but there is the potential risk that you can permanently corrupt the Master Boot Record (MBR) of your new drive, making it inaccessible to any operating system. Admittedly, this is extremely unlikely, but it is a point that nevertheless must be stressed.

With this in mind, it is imperative that you make an effective backup of all you data: burn a CD, copy it to an extra drive, send it to a server - anything, but back it up and then check that you can completely restore this backup (including all your personal data e.g. mailboxes, bookmarks etc.) without any problems prior to setting up your new hard drive.

Author’s note: Please excuse the shortage of user-friendly screen captures within this document - many of the processes described here take place outside areas where screen captures are viable.

Overview / Preamble.

There are several alternate ways of upgrading your hard drive on a single drive machine, depending on hardware availability, available space and the format of your pre-existing file system.

If you are without any means of creating a direct connection between your old and new hard drives (rare in a PC system, but more likely in laptops), this document deals in detail with the issue of how to transfer your Operating System (OS) and all your other data between the two drives.

Furthermore, this document specifically focuses on the tricky problem of how to upgrade laptop hard drives and avoid Product Reactivation when you don’t have access to either the appropriate hardware or software.

For example, on a pre-installed Windows XP laptop system with a single hard drive running a pre-installed version of Office 2002, there is a possibility that you never possessed the Office installation CD. Equally, you may have lost or mislaid your CD, and you have no desire to either persuade Microsoft to give you another free one, nor part with the necessary cash to buy yourself another one.

However, if you try to directly copy your C: partition contents onto your new drive (by whatever method) without carrying out the appropriate steps, you may discover that firstly, you have not copied over the entire system so the OS does not boot correctly, and secondly, even if your OS does boot up, whenever you attempt to use an Office product, you are presented with a Product Activation request which will, in the absence of your software installation CDs, render your software useless.

NB The methods described here will not work for copying one machine’s OS to another machine (unless of course they are pretty much identical, right down to the serial number on the processor). The system architecture must remain the same apart, of course, for the drive which you are upgrading. This is also because of the Windows Product Activation Code.

A short note on the Windows Product Activation Code.

The Windows Product Activation Code is in-part based on a combination of 10 system hardware settings. They are:

Hardware hash components:


1 Display Adapter
2 SCSI Adapter
3 IDE Adapter
4 Network Adapter MAC Address
5 RAM Amount Range (i.e. 0-64mb, 64-128mb, etc)
6 Processor Type
7 Processor Serial Number
8 Hard Drive Device
9 Hard Drive Volume Serial Number
10 CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM

Additionally, whether or not your computer can be placed into a docking station or accepts PCMCIA cards is also added into the equation. In theory, most desktop systems will permit you to change up to six hardware items before the Re-activation Wizard appears but, if your machine has a PCMCIA slot (most laptops), you can change 9 of the 10 items before you need to reactivate your software.

However, swapping the hard drive, thereby altering the hard drive volume serial number, (particularly in the presence of a modular CD ROM - a common feature on many laptops), despite being only one hardware change, invariably seems to generate a product reactivation request.

To avoid this problem when you are upgrading a hard drive, you need to provide your new drive with the same volume identification as the one on which the old system resided. This matter is described in detail in the section on finalising your system.

For a more detailed and informed perspective on Windows Product Activation, please check any or all of the following links.

• http://www.bythom.com/officeredux.htm
  
• http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx
  
• http://labmice.techtarget.com/FAQ/winxpfaq.htm
  
• http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about53155.html

An introduction to Multi-Boot Systems.

In the methods outlined in this document, in the absence of the appropriate hardware (see Ingredients), it is often necessary to create at least one extra OS to enable moving your old system to your new disk. Depending on your choice of method, this second OS could either be on your old disk or on the new one - either way, you will be creating a multi-boot system on a single IDE drive as a consequence.

Installing multi-boot OS on multi-drive systems does not pose too great a problem for the wary user. Each individual hard drive has its own MBR, so all that is required is the use of a boot loader (either Windows XP’s own, or a third party manager such as XOSL or LILO) which will allow you to choose between the individual drives. The system on the selected drive will load on your request.

However, multi-boot systems on single drive laptops/PCs are slightly more complicated…

On a single drive installation, there is only one MBR, and not only does each OS require access to it, but with every new OS installation, the pre-existing MBR is overwritten. However, it is still feasible to multi-partition a single drive with several extended and logical partitions and have each partition correctly running its own OS via a boot loader, although certain considerations must be made during the installations of the individual OS, as discussed in the section on creating a multi-OS multi-boot machine.

Section A - Upgrading your Hard Drive

Basic Assumption:

• You have a laptop with a single hard drive, with at least a modular 3.5” floppy / CD-drive and a USB connection to an external storage facility (or an alternative connection)
  or
  You have a PC with at least one extra on-board IDE connector plus a CD ROM and 3.5” floppy disk drive.
  
  
• You wish to upgrade your single, small hard drive to a much larger hard drive.
  
  
• Your system has a configurable BIOS permitting a modifiable boot sequence - allowing you to swap between floppy, hard drive and CD as your primary boot drive - see preferable BIOS setup.
  
• You are running Windows XP (preferably XP Pro).
  
• You are running Office 2002 together with various other software packages but no longer have access to the original software installation CDs.
  

Basic Premise:

You need to place a copy of the contents your old drive onto your new one.
As windows locks several essential files, you will need to turn you old drive into a “slave” while using a different OS to make an image of its entire contents, including these locked files. After you have copied this image onto your new drive and finalised the installation process, your old system should run perfectly on the upgraded drive.

Approach.

There are a variety of methods for upgrading a hard drive on a single drive system, depending software and hardware availability. However, having tested several different approaches, the following approach appears to be the most reliable. It can be broken down to seven distinct processes.

Stage One	-	Preparing the new disk.
Stage Two	-	Preparing the old system.
including: BIOS / Audit / Strip (if necessary) / Hardware check.
Stage Three	-	Reading the source files.
Stage Four	-	Storing the old system.
Stage Five	-	Preparing to move the old system to the new.
Stage Six	-	Writing to the new disk.
Stage Seven	-	Finalising the system.

However, before you start to cook anything, you will need the right Ingredients...

Ingredients.

1.     What you need to know:

• A decent working knowledge of DOS, Windows, XP.
  
• The knowledge of how to swap safely the hard drives in your laptop (and/or PC).

2.     What you need to physically possess (essential):

Software:

A Windows XP bootable installation CD (preferably XP Pro).

DOS BOOT disks.

Create either a Windows ME DOS BOOT 3.5” floppy disk complete with XCOPY32.EXE

Boot disk images and files can be found at www.allbootdisks.com, while the Windows ME version of XCOPY.EXE and related files can be found from:

• http://www.allbootdisks.com/disk_contents/me.html

or a Windows 98 DOS BOOT 3.5” floppy disk complete with XXCOPY16.EXE

XXCOPY.EXE and related files can be downloaded from:

• http://www.xxcopy.com/index.htm
  

Either way, the XCOPY.EXE version must be able to handle :


• Hidden files
  
• System files
  
• Read only files
  

Also, check that your DOS BOOT disks also contain:


• ATTRIB.EXE
  
• FDISK.EXE
  
• FORMAT.COM
  

Finally, add VOLUMEID.EXE from http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/VolumeId.html to your DOS BOOT disk, then read the section on Instant CD Support.

NB Both versions of the above DOS BOOT disks are required if you intend to install both Windows ME and 98 on your multi-boot system.


Windows XP BOOT Disk.

Hopefully, you won’t have much call to use this Nevertheless, it comes in handy, especially when you are installing new OS on your multi-Boot system.

Please read http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/xpquick.txt for a basic description of creating a Windows XP BOOT disk.

The basic files required are:


• boot.ini
  
• ntdetect.com
  
• ntldr
  
  
After you have installed the Recovery Console on either your old or new Windows XP installation, it is prudent to add to your boot disk a folder called cmdcons\ and place within it the following files:


• ntdetect.com
  
• BOOTSECT.DAT
  
  
Copy two these files from the cmdcons\ folder located on your C: partition of your Windows XP installation.

Then, add to your BOOT.INI file the line:

C:\cmdcons\bootsect.dat=" Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Finally, write protect all your boot disks.

Hardware:

You must also have handy the necessary software, drivers and patches for all your pre-existing hardware eg modems, wireless cards, touch-pads, screens, printers, sound-cards, USB etc.

Finally, some form of external storage facility with enough capacity to accommodate the image of the contents of your pre-existing hard drive, with a minimum 2GB space. This storage facility can be:


• A Network server.
  
• An External drive (Firewire/USB/Bluetooth etc).
  
• A CD Writer or Optical or Tape storage device.
  
• An FTP server.
  
  
• If you have a 2.5” USB caddy, then you can insert your new drive into it and use this as the storage device.
  
  
• If you are using a second computer system, then the spare space on that system will be used to store your system image.
  
  
You will need the necessary cables and drivers for the above.

You may also find useful:

• Ranish’s Partition manager (see the sections on disk preparation and NTFS conversion).
  
• Windows 98SE installation CD.
  
• Windows ME installation CD.
  
• Strong coffee and a comfortable chair.
  

What will definitely make your life much easier:

• For upgrading a laptop drive: Either a 2.5” - 3.5” IDE connector or a 2.5” USB caddy plus access to another computer running Windows ME or higher (or a Linux system).
  
  
• For upgrading a PC: Access to another computer running Windows ME or higher (or a Linux system).
  
  The above is, for future reference, the appropriate hardware.

Stage One - Disk Preparation.

• For a desktop system, open up the box, remove your old drive and temporarily set you new disk up as the IDE master.
  
  
• For a laptop, remove your old drive and insert the new one into the laptop.
  

Now, for either system, recognise the new disk inside the BIOS and then boot off a DOS BOOT disk. Then using FDISK.EXE and FORMAT.COM, partition and format the disk as described below.


Partitioning your new hard drive in preparation for a multi-boot system using FDISK.EXE

When you are setting up your new disk, it is important that the format of the destination C: partition reflects that of the original disk's C: partition. If you were running Windows XP over a NTFS system on your old hard drive, then your new C: partition must be formatted to NTFS. However, if you are going to use a copying method which relies on XCOPY, then you must convert your old NTFS file system to FAT32. (see the section on NTFS to FAT conversion).

Example of a Typical Structure for a 40GB hard drive used for Multi-booting:

(These partition names and sizes are arbitrary, and depend entirely on what OS you intend to run).



	Partition/name		size	format
Primary partition	C: WINXP	-	10GB	format depends on original C: partition
	D: TEMP	-	10GB	FAT32
Logical drives	E: WINXP (compact)	-	2GB	NTFS or FAT32
in extended partition	F: WIN98SE	-	1.5GB	FAT32
	G: WINME	-	1.5GB	FAT32
	H: STORAGE	-	10GB	FAT32
Leave for Linux	Linux	-	5GB	leave unfomatted

For the rest of this document, we will be referring to the above example. Of course, you can set up your new hard drive with almost any combination of partitions and OS.

Make the primary partition active.
Reboot back off your DOS BOOT disk.

Now it is necessary to format at least some of the partitions on the new drive.

FORMAT.COM

Format the following partitions using the appropriate DOS BOOT disk in preparation for setting up a multi-boot system with either Windows ME or Windows 98. (You can always convert the file system later inside Windows XP).

Boot off DOS BOOT floppy.


A:\FORMAT C:

Give drive name as the same on the original C: drive.

A:\SYS C:
A:\FORMAT either F: or G: depending on OS chosen.
A:\SYS either F: or G:


Now, reboot the system without the floppy in the drive. You should get a C:\ prompt with either Windows ME or Windows 98 as your OS version.

Type VER to check the OS.


For Windows 98, the response should read like this:

Adding Instant CD ROM Support.

Using a pre-existing installation of either Windows 98 or ME, create on your DOS BOOT disk folder, called SUPPORT and add the files listed below. The majority of these files can be found in the \WINDOWS\COMMAND\EBD\ folder of any Windows 98 or ME installation.

AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
COUNTRY.SYS
DISPLAY.SYS
HIMEM.SYS
KEYB.SYS
KEYBOARD.SYS
MSCDEX.EXE
OAKCDROM.SYS
SSCDROM.SYS
BTCDROM.SYS
ASPICD.SYS
SYS.COM

Edit the contents of the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT so that they look like the examples below:

AUTOEXEC.BAT contents:

mode con cp prepare=((850) ega.cpi)
mode con cp select=850
keyb uk,,keyboard.sys
c:\mscdex /d:sscd000

CONFIG.SYS contents:

device=display.sys con=(ega,,1)
country=044,850,country.sys
device=himem.sys
device=c:\sscdrom.sys /d:sscd000 /v

Change the final line of each of these files to reflect the correct driver for your CD ROM.
For example, using the OAKCDROM driver.

AUTOEXEC.BAT: c:\mscdex /d:oakcd000
CONFIG.SYS: device=c:\oakcdrom.sys /d:oakcd000 /v

Once you have completed the basic DOS install, boot off the floppy, and copy the contents of this SUPPORT folder to the root of the C: partition. Now, when you boot off the C: drive, the CD ROM works.

Ensure that this is the case.

Stage Two - System Preparation.

Have you backed up your system and verified the backup?

If you can, make a complete backup of your present setup (one you can definitely restore from if and when you make a mistake).

BIOS Boot order setup.

During the installation / upgrade, the best setup for your BIOS boot order should be as follows:

1	Floppy.
2	CD ROM.
3	IDE hard disk.

At system boot, enter the CMOS BIOS setup and set your boot order as above.

Audit.

Make a complete audit of your present machine’s setup.

Enter a command prompt and type VOL.

Your output should be similar to the following:

Record the following:

Volume serial number (ID). - in the above example, 1C56-6A84
Volume Name of C: drive (if it has one) - in the above example, WIN_XP.

Then from inside Windows, select control panel - system - computer name:



Make a note of:

Computer name.
Domain name (if used).
User name and registration details.

Make sure you have a record of all you passwords as well.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons for not carrying out the Audit?

There are none.

System Stripping.

Turn on system restore.
Create a new restore point.

Remember, to upgrade your hard drive, you require a working version of your system with the essential software for which you have no installation disks. On some occasions, the smaller the core system that you are copying the better: If your external storage facility is short of space, or if you are using a network and therefore are dependent on slow transfer speeds, then you should carry out some or all of the stripping suggestions. If you are copying either via another computer, or copying directly to your new drive (via an appropriate hard drive caddy or something similar), then you do not need to follow these suggestions.

NB - SYSTEM STRIPPING IS NOT NECESSARY IF YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT SPACE ON YOUR EXTERNAL STORAGE DEVICE, OR YOU ARE COPYING YOUR SYSTEM DIRECTLY ONTO YOUR NEW DRIVE.

HOWEVER, IT IS WORTHWHILE IF YOU ARE MOVING YOUR SYSTEM IMAGE EITHER ACROSS A NETWORK OR ONTO A DEVICE WHICH IS SHORT OF SPACE. IT IS ALSO OF BENEFIT IF YOU INTEND INSTALL A SECOND COMPACT OS ONTO YOUR ORIGINAL DISK AND NEED TO FREE UP EXTRA SPACE.

System stripping suggestions:

1	While it is important that you correctly backup your documents, music, video and images to a separate location, they should still be removed from the system.
2	If you have the installation disks for any installed software packages (so that you are able to re-install them later on to the new hard drive), then remove them off the system.
3	Remove all temp files.
4	Remove all pre-fetch files.
5	Empty the caches for all your installed browsers.

As you slowly strip down the system, continue to check that your core components (in this example, MS Office) continue to work properly. Regularly create restore points as you go. If you encounter a problem, restore the system from a previous restore point, and then continue stripping, but omit the last software you removed.

Once you have finished stripping, you will find that your final core system on the C: partition will be approximately 2GB.

- Caveat -
Under what conditions should you consider performing a system strip?

1	Slow transfer speeds, particularly if moving the system image over a network.
2	Minimal space on external storage device for whole of C:
3	With no direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE) and no access to a second computer with a direct connection between itself and your hard drives, if there is potentially enough space for an extra OS on the original disk after the strip and repartitioning, then installing an extra Windows XP OS is a better way of copying the system to an external storage device than using XCOPY.EXE. You should perform a strip.

Hardware check

Another important step to help protect against Product Re-activation is to hot swap and install all your essential hardware, including network adaptors, CD/DVD’s, modular floppies etc. on your old system before your make a copy of the file system.

On your laptop, hot swap all modular components - at least twice (preferably while an Office application is open for good measure). This is to ensure that your image of Windows does not throw up any unnecessary extra Product Activation requests.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons why you should not bother to perform the Hardware Check?

You are running a PC without any add-ons / PCMCIA slots etc, with only one current hardware profile in use.

Stage Three - Reading the source files - section A.

• Turn off hidden / system files.
  
• Turn off indexing.
  
• Turn off system restore.
  
• Turn off all system monitoring and shutdown all programs running in the background.
  
• If you have a modular CD, put it into your machine.
  

Making a System Image and Dealing with Locked Files.

Certain files are locked within the Windows XP environment and cannot therefore be copied within the running XP environment. When attempting to copy them within the same version of Windows XP, a similar message to the following will appear:



These locked system files are (in no particular order):

C:\ HIBERFIL.SYS
C:\ PAGEFILE.SYS

C:\documents and settings\[directory]\ntuser.dat.LOG
C:\documents and settings\[directory]\NTUSER.DAT

Where [directory] refers to each of the following:

Administrator
All users
Default User
LocalService
NetworkService
PLUS: Each individual extra user if present.


C:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\application data\microsoft\windows\UsrClass.dat.LOG
C:\documents and settings\administrator\local settings\application data\microsoft\windows\UsrClass.dat

(The above two files are really annoying for the DOS copy - hidden system files within five long filename folders can be hard to find sonetimes!)

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\DEFAULT
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SAM
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SECURITY
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\DEFAULT.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SAM.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SECURITY.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SOFTWARE.LOG
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM.LOG

Which is a minimum total of 24 files locked, plus two more for every extra user you have on your system.

With Windows XP locking these files, you cannot copy them from within the running installation. Instead, you will need to temporarily turn the original drive into a “slave” and use another OS to read these locked files.

You can use either a second computer with its own OS to read these files, or use your own system.

Stage Three - Reading the source files - section B.

Using the original disk as the system image.

If you use a second computer to copy the system image, then you will need set your old drive up as a “slave” on this separate system. The second computer’s system must not only be able to read the format of your old system, but have enough spare space to be able to store your system image and must be able to connect to your new hard disk.

• If you are upgrading a PC hard disk (on a PC), then there are usually spare IDE connections provided inside the box to connect your new disk as a slave.
  
  
• If the second computer is a PC, and you are upgrading a laptop 2.5” hard disk, then you will need a 2.5” to 3.5” IDE connector.
  
  
• If the second computer is a laptop, and you are upgrading a laptop 2.5” hard disk, then you will need a 2.5” USB caddy (or similar).
  
  
• If the second computer is a laptop, and you are upgrading a PC’s 3.5” hard disk, then you will need a 3.5” USB caddy (or similar).
  

- Caveat -
Why you can’t use a second computer to perform the system copy.

You have no means of connecting your system’s drives directly to the computer. If both systems are PC, then there should be no problem here, but If you are using a PC to upgrade a laptop, you will need a 2.5” - 3.5” IDE connector, If you are using a laptop to upgrade a laptop, you will need a 2.5” caddy of some description, and If you are using a laptop to upgrade a PC, you will need a 3.5” caddy of some description.

Without using a second computer, you can also set up a new compact Windows XP OS on a different partition on the new formatted disk and, using a direct connection between the old disk (in a caddy or connected by IDE) and the new one, copy over the entire old file system. See the section on setting up a compact Windows XP OS on the new disk for more details. Equally, you could set up a new compact Windows XP OS installation on the old drive (if there is enough spare space), and perform the same operation (this time, with the new drive in the caddy). Please read below and the section on third party partitioning for more details.

Stage Three - Reading the source files - section C.

Creating a new system image.

If you unable to use another computer and do not have access to the appropriate connectors for a direct connection between your two drives (see Ingredients), you can still run a different compact Windows XP OS on your own machine to copy the system image to your particular external device.

If there is enough spare space on your original disk, you can repartition the disk, create a new partition D: and install a second compact OS on D: to read the C: partition. Once you have access to the compact OS on D:, use it to copy the entire contents of the old C: partition to your particular external device. See the section below on third party disk management for details on repartitioning your disk.

If there is not enough space, you can use your working version of Windows XP to copy the bulk of the files on the system to an external device, and then use a DOS BOOT disk to make a local copy of the locked files. - please read the section on Windows and DOS copying below.

If you have the space, it is actually quicker to install a second compact Windows XP OS onto your old drive rather than use the DOS copy method to gain access to your locked system files. Although the Windows XP installation can take some time, DOS copying large system files can take an eternity.

Third-party disk partition management.

We apologise, but at present, the complexities of third-party partition management are beyond the scope of this document. However, the author’s experience with Ranish’s partition manager is that, with a bit of trial and error, it is possible to create new extended/logical DOS partitions within pre-existing partitions without any loss of data (as long as there is enough spare space).

Therefore, by using a partition manager, it is possible to divide a single drive into two partitons and to then install a second Windows XP OS onto the newly created second partiton. Again, a full backup is essential before you start to investigate this procedure.

- Caveat -
What are the reasons for not needing to install a second Windows XP OS on your original drive.

You do not enough spare space on the original drive (even after strip). Or you have either: A direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE). or: Access to second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.

Stage Three - Reading the source files - section D.

Using Windows and DOS Copy.

NB: This will not work for NTFS - the file system must be converted first
(see the NTFS to FAT section).

Even though you cannot copy the locked files within Windows XP, you can still copy all the bulk of the file system and the remaining files in the directories and sub-directories containing the locked files (in these problem directories, it is best to select all the contents of the directory in Explorer, then deselect the files which you know to be locked out prior to copying).

At this point, if you perform a Total File Count, you should hopefully find that your copy (or image) of C: is complete bar the 24 locked windows system files.

• Now, turn off machine.
  
• If you are using a laptop, remove the modular CD ROM and replace the modular floppy disk drive.
  
• Boot off your Windows ME / 98 DOS BOOT disk.
  
• Find and copy the previously locked files listed above to a new location using XCOPY.EXE or XXCOPY.EXE.
  
• Put on that Santana live triple album you have neither had the time nor patience to listen to before, lie back, the copy process will take a while.
  
• Once finished, reboot back into Windows XP and move these copies of the locked system files to their correct locations within your image of C:.
  
• Again, perform a Total File Count to check that your image has the same number of files as the original version of C:
  
  As you have recently rebooted your machine, you may find that Windows XP has created or modified a few .ini files since you backed them up - they are not relevant - as long as you have:
  
  

  1	copied the entire partition bar the locked files in Windows XP, and then
  2	immediately rebooted and copied the locked files from DOS, you should have an effective image of your old C: drive.

  
  
  The XCOPY command line for handling hidden / system files and their sub-directories is:
  
  
  XCOPY C:\[directory]\*.* K/F/C/H/R/E D:\*.*
  
  
  Please see http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/hd/cpyhd/cpyhd2.htm for more details.
  

Question - Why not use XCOPY.EXE / XXCOPY.EXE to copy the entire contents of the partition?

Simple answer - It takes a very long time to copy the entire 2GB inside DOS. It is actually quicker to install a new version of Windows XP and let it copy the files than to copy the files in DOS.

However, if you cannot install a second version of Windows XP, let your original version do the bulk of the work, then use the DOS copy to handle just the small number of locked files. You will see just how slow the DOS copy is when you attempt to make a copy of PAGEFILE.SYS.

- Caveat -
What are the conditions which require the creation of the system image using XCOPY.EXE.

1	You have no direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE).
2	You have no access to a second computer with a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.
3	You do not have enough spare space on the original drive (even after strip) to create a second Windows XP OS.

Stage Three - Reading the source files - section E.

Total file count.

Independent of the method you use to make an image of your original system, it is important that you verify that the number of files and the total size of the system image is equivalent to that of the original system. To do this you will need to compare the size and number of files on C: to your copy.

In Explorer, select the entire contents of C:, right click and select “properties” - the total number and size of the files on disk is shown at the top of the window. Perform the same operation for your image copy of C: - they should be the same if you have a perfect image. If they are not, then you may have not finished copying some locked or hidden files. Read through Stage Three again and check that you have correctly copied all your locked windows system files.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons for not checking the total file count?

There are none.

Converting your NTFS partition to FAT32.

If you do not have the appropriate hardware (see Ingredients) and are unable to create an extra compact OS on your original disk due to space limitations (basic requirement - spare 2GB on your original drive), then it is likely that you will be using a DOS-based version of XCOPY to help make a copy of your system. As XCOPY cannot read NTFS file systems, it is necessary to convert your present NTFS file system (if you have one) to FAT32.

Unfortunately, this cannot be performed inside Windows XP, and you will require a third party program such as:

Partition Magic (which costs money)
• http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/index.html
or Ranish’s Partition Manager (which is shareware)
• http://www.ranish.com/part/

Author’s note: disk repartitioning and reformatting can be dangerous to your computer’s health. Please read all the relevant documentation that comes with your disk partition manager.

- Caveat -
One situation where you are required to convert the NTFS to FAT32.

You need to use XCOPY.EXE to create the system image.

- Caveat -
Four situations where you are not required to convert the NTFS to FAT32.

1	You are doing this on a PC.
2	You have a direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE).
3	You have access to second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.
4	You have enough spare space on the original drive (after stripping it down) to create a second Windows XP OS.

Stage Four - Temporarily storing the old system.

If you are using a second computer, please make sure you have read the section on using the original disk as your system image.


• If your second system is a PC, then your old drive should be connected as a “slave” via IDE.
  
• If your second system is a laptop, then your old drive should be connected via a USB caddy.
  
  
Copy the contents of the old C: partition to an empty location on the computer’s main drive.

If you are using only your own machine, you will still need some form of storage device:


• If you are upgrading a PC hard disk, then your new formatted disk (acting as a slave) is your storage device.
  
• If you are upgrading a laptop hard drive, and if you have a 2.5” USB caddy, either:
  
  
  Place the new formatted drive into the caddy to act as your storage device or
  Read the section on using the original disk as your system image.
  
  
As discussed in Ingredients, other possible external storage options include:


• CD Writer.
  
• USB storage (but not 2.5” caddy).
  
• Network.
  
• FTP.
  
  
Connect your external storage device by whatever means necessary (if you have not already done so).
If you have been able to create a second compact installation of Windows XP on your old system, boot to this and copy the entire contents of C: onto the storage device. (read the section on system stripping first).
If you are unable to install a second OS - copy over the entire system except the locked files, and then add the system image files as you create them (see Windows and DOS copy).

Check the Total File Count of the image on the storage device against your original.

Stage Five - Preparing to move the old system to the new disk.

If you are using a second computer, remove the old disk and replace it with the new formatted disk (still as a slave). Then, copy the old C: partition’s image from where it has been stored on the second PC onto the C: partition of the new formatted disk. Remove the new disk from the second computer (or caddy) and insert it back into your original machine. Your old system is now on your new drive. Skip to the section on finalising the system.

If you are using only your own machine and you have copied the system image onto your new formatted drive inside your 2.5” USB caddy, or to your new drive acting as a slave inside your PC, then either remove the drive from the caddy and place it inside the laptop or swap the hard drives over inside the PC, making the slave the master. Your old system is now on your new drive. Skip to the section on finalising the system.

However, if you have stored you old system on a different external storage device, you will now have to set up a new compact version of Windows XP on a different partition from C: on the new formatted drive to be able to copy the system across. (read the next section on compact Windows XP setup).

Set up compact Windows XP OS on a different partition on the new disk.

Firstly, remove your old disk and insert the new formatted one into your computer.

You have the following choices:

A	Installing Windows XP directly off CD (slow).
B	Booting to DOS with CD support. Copying Windows ME or 98 install CD to new disk. Installing Windows ME or 98 onto another partition from hard disk, Copying Windows XP install CD to new disk. Installing Windows XP from Windows ME or 98 from hard disk (potentially quicker).

Method B (especially installing Windows 98) can prove to be quite tricky if you have formatted your C: partition to NTFS, but it does have the advantages of creating an extra OS for those rainy days and can still be quicker than Method A.

Using the partition names from the example in partitioning your new hard drive:

A

Boot off your Windows XP CD, and follow the installation instructions to install a custom, compact Windows XP to the E: partition - NOT TO C:

B

After creating a basic DOS install with CD support (see the section on CD ROM Support), copy the Windows 98/ME installation CD to H: STORAGE, then install a compact Windows 98 or ME to, F: (Windows 98) or G: (Windows ME) respectively - NOT TO C:. Boot into your new version of Windows and copy over the contents of your Windows XP installation CD to H: STORAGE. Run the Windows XP installation program from within Windows (ME or 98), creating a NEW custom compact Windows XP installation on the E: partition - NOT ON C: (create a fresh installation of Windows XP, do not elect to upgrade your pre-existing version of Windows, and install Windows XP with Recovery Console if possible).


If you have set up Method A correctly, your machine should now boot directly into a new version of Windows XP running on E:.
If you have set up Method B correctly, your machine should now boot into the XP boot loader menu, allowing you to choose between Windows XP on E: and either Windows 98 or ME (on F: or G:).
If Method B results in a machine that does not boot up correctly, please read the sections about the Recovery Console and BOOT.INI.

Now that you have set up a viable OS on your new disk, you are ready to move the old system from the external storage device to your new C: partition.

- Caveat -
Why do you need to install a new OS onto an alternative partition on your new drive?

You are using an external storage device. You have neither: A direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE). nor: Access to a second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.

- Caveat -
If you already have Windows 98 or ME running on the new disk, why do you also have to have to install a new version of Windows XP?

Whatever partition either Windows 98 or ME are installed to and run from, they still creates and locks up part of the C:\WINDOWS directory when in use, making it impossible to copy over a new system completely onto a C: partition. If Windows XP is installed to a different partition than C:, it can run independently of the C: partition, and is therefore capable of manipulating any pre-existing system on C:. So, faced with the prospect of finding and deleting the locked files in DOS and then copying over the system image (again in DOS), it is better practice to run another installation of Windows XP from an entirely different partition and use it to access the C: partition.

Stage Six - Writing the new system.

Protecting your other OS.

If you have installed Windows XP after installing either Windows ME or Windows 98, and you wish to preserve the architecture of your multi-boot system, please do the following before copying your old system image to the new C: partition.

• Boot into Windows XP.
  
• Make a copy of the following essential files found in the root directory of your C: partition and save them to H: STORAGE\WINBOOT.
  
  
  AUTOEXEC.BAT
  BOOT.INI
  BOOTSECT.DOS
  CONFIG.SYS
  IO.SYS
  MSDOS.SYS
  
  
• Inside Explorer, run a search for all folders called CATROOT on your C: partition.
  
• Make a copy of the all folders named CATROOT and save them to identifiable locations on H:\STORAGE\OLDCATROOTS\.
  
  NB: This step is important if you wish to maintain a multi-boot OS with old versions of Windows.
  
  

Writing to the new disk

Once you have your new compact version of Windows XP running, you can copy the original disk’s file system image from the external storage device directly onto the C: partition on the new drive.

• Boot into Windows XP.
  
• Delete the entire contents of the C: partition apart from the folders named CATROOT, as mentioned above in protecting your OS.
  
• Attach your external device.
  
• Copy the files from the external device to C:
  
• Check the Total File Count.
  
  

Your old system is now on your new drive.

Congratulations, you have nearly completed upgrading your hard drive.

Stage Seven - Finalising the system.

You now have to use the information you collected when you performed the initial system audit to update the Volume Serial number on your new C: partition. This is performed by the VOLUMEID.EXE you placed on your DOS BOOT disk (see Ingredients).

There are various releases of Volume ID in circulation. It is probably best to use the latest, which will work inside Windows XP, ME and 98. Download it from the sysinternals.com website.

Either boot off a DOS BOOT disk containing VOLUMEID.EXE, or boot back into Windows ME/98 or your compact installation of Windows XP.

DO NOT BOOT into your old system on C:

Via the command prompt, go to VOLUMEID.EXE's location and type:

VOLUMEID C: [1234-5678]

Where the number in square brackets refers to original volume ID number you collected when you audited the original system.



REMEMBER: DO NOT BOOT into your old system on C: until you have run VOLUMEID.EXE.

You can run VOLUMEID.EXE from any OS, but you must run it before you boot into your newly transferred OS.

• Boot back into either Windows 98/ME or your compact installation of Windows XP (if you are not already there).
  
• In Explorer, change the name of the C: partition to that of you old drive name.
  
• Run Windows XP setup again from H: STORAGE
  
• Follow the installation process until you reach the prompt for:
  
  “searching for previous versions of Windows”.
  
  
• At this point, select the system on C:, and select R (restore) for this drive.
  

When the process is complete, you can use your old system on your new disk.
Reinstall all the software and personal data you previously stripped from the original system.
Enjoy.

BIOS Boot order setup (slight return).

After the installation / upgrade, for security purposes, the best setup for your BIOS boot order should now be as follows:

1       IDE hard disk

At system boot, enter the CMOS BIOS setup and reset your boot order accordingly, removing the floppy and CD from the boot selection process.

Section B - Advanced Multi-Boot Systems.

Recommended Reading: Before launching into an in-depth analysis of multi-boot systems, I would like to recommend the following site as an invaluable resource for all things multi-boot. Many questions not covered within this document are answered comprehensively on this site.

• http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual
  

Restoring Your Multi-Boot System.

At present, if you have correctly followed the process that involves creating a secondary compact Windows XP OS on the new disk, either by direct installation, or by using either Windows ME or 98 as part of the installation process, then you should have at least two, potentially three distinct operating systems present on your single IDE disk.

• Your old Windows XP running on C:
  
• A compact version of Windows XP running on E:
  
• And (maybe) either Windows 98 running on F: or Windows ME running on G:
  

However, as you have just replaced your new hard drive’s BOOT.INI with the one from your old system, there is a possibility that only your original version of Windows XP appears to boot.

To restore your fully-functional Multi-Boot after copying over your system image, you will need to restore, replace and modify some files to correct the problem.
 

Section B - Advanced Multi-Boot Systems - Modifying Boot Files.

NB It is important that you recognise that neither Windows 98 nor Window ME are capable of recognising an NTFS file system. As a consequence, if you are following the example as laid out in partitioning your new drive, and you have installed your compact Windows XP OS as an NTFS on partition E: then, when editing the files as described below, every drive/partition reference letter should be shifted up one letter.

For example, your initially installed Windows 98 on F:, then installed Windows XP on partition E: with an NTFS. The Windows XP installation created a C:\BOOTSECT.DOS and modified the C:\BOOT.INI accordingly to allow a dual-boot system. However, the Windows 98 based files, (AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS and MSDOS.SYS) may well be pointing towards a Windows 98 installation expected on partition F:, but due to NTFS making the entire E: partition invisible to Windows 98, the installation doesn’t appear on partition F:, it seems to have shifted up one place on the drive list to partition E:, thus making Windows 98 unbootable.

As a consequence, when editing the following files, it is sometimes necessary to change drive letters for Windows 98 / ME to accommodate an invisible NTFS if it is present higher up the order of the drive letter list.

The following examples refer to the example of drive architecture laid out in the section on partitioning your new drive, but without any invisible NTFS partitions. You may have to change drive letters etc to accommodate your own personal set up and invisible NTFS file systems.

Standard Windows 98 / ME Boot files.

Prior to copying over your old system, you should have made a copy of certain files from the root directory of the new C: partition, and saved them to H: STORAGE\WINBOOT (please see protecting your other OS). They are:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
BOOT.INI
BOOTSECT.DOS
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

Copy these files from WINBOOT, and place the copies back in the root of C:

Standard C:\ root files for a Windows 98 / XP multi-boot.

Drive Architecture:

Windows XP on C:
Windows 98 on F:

1     C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT


mode con codepage prepare=((850) F:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=850
keyb uk,,F:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys


2     C:\CONFIG.SYS


device=E:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\display.sys con=(ega,,1)
Country=044,850,E:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\country.sys


3     C:\MSDOS.SYS


At top of file

[Options]
BootGUI=1
DoubleBuffer=1
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.10.2222
Logo=0

At bottom of file

[Paths]
WinDir=F:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=F:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=F

Standard C:\ root files for a Windows ME / XP multi-boot.

Drive Architecture:

Windows XP on C:
Windows 98 on G:

1     C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT


SET windir=G:\WINDOWS
SET winbootdir=G:\WINDOWS
SET COMSPEC=G:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM
SET PATH=G:\WINDOWS;G:\WINDOWS\COMMAND
SET PROMPT=$p$g


2     C:\CONFIG.SYS


rem *** [this file is empty]


3     C:\MSDOS.SYS


At top of file

[Options]
BootGUI=1
AutoScan=1
WinVer=4.90.3000
Logo=0

At bottom of file

[Paths]
WinDir=G:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=G:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=G

Finally, for both Windows ME and 98, you must edit your BOOT.INI so that you can see all your multi-boot options.

BOOT.INI

The following example of a BOOT.INI as a default loads the Windows XP installation on C: There is a 25 second timeout before this default OS boots.

It also gives the option of loading:

A second Windows XP installation from E:
An old version of Windows (either Windows 98 on F;, or Windows ME on G:)
Finally, there is the option of running the Recovery Console.


[boot loader]
timeout=25
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Win on C" /fastdetect /noguiboot
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Win on E" /fastdetect /noguiboot
C:\="Microsoft Old Windows"
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

You may discover that every time you run Windows ME a new C:\CONFIG.SYS and a new C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT are created (along with C:\VIDEOROM.BIN) but, as they are both being continually overwritten (each time you run the batch file to switch processes), they can be ignored.

For further information, the following documents offer a thorough, superior and deeper investigation into setting up similar multi-boot systems. Please read them.

• http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/reinstalldual9x.html
  
• http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/bootsectdos.html

Section B - Advanced Multi-Boot Systems - The Recovery Console.

There are three main programs for manipulating Windows XP multi-boot systems inside the Recovery Console shell.


• FIXBOOT
  
• FIXMBR
  
• BOOTCFG
  
  
The following documents outline exactly how these programs can be use to restore your boot structure. This is not a cop-out from the author - these excellent documents offer a very comprehensive analysis of the recovery console, and I fail to see the point of duplicating material that is already so well represented.



Recovery console, FIXMBR and FIXBOOT:	http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/console.html
BOOTCFG:	http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/bootcfg.html

Extras

However, there are two specific situations which are not covered in depth on the http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net website which are relevant to this document.

They are:

1	Setting up a multi-boot system with both Windows 98 and ME as well as Windows XP.
and
2	Installing Linux to any pre-existing Windows XP multi-boot system.

Section B - Advanced Multi-Boot Systems - Extras.

1     Setting up an Windows XP multi-boot system with both Windows 98 and Windows ME.

Windows 98 and Windows ME are both clients, which means that, in the very simplest terms, they were not really designed to run on the same single drive system. Microsoft created them so that one or the other can run, but not both, so that even if you have multi-partitioned your drive, installed each OS to a different partition and are using a boot loader to choose between the two, they quite probably still won’t run well. However, as discussed in the introduction to multi-boot systems, there are ways of manipulating the system files of these clients so that they can run off partitions other than the C: partition and, by extending this principle, it is possible to install both clients and interchange between the two on a multi-boot system by simply swapping over the relevant system files and rebooting.

Using the same example as set out before, let us assume that we have set up our new system using a second version of Windows XP on E:, which was created after installing Windows 98 on F:. At present we have the following architecture on our new hard drive.

	Partition/name		size	OS
Primary partition	C: WINXP	-	10GB	Windows XP FAT32
	D: TEMP	-	10GB	any FAT
Logical drives	E: WINXP (compact)	-	2GB	Windows XP FAT32
in extended partition	F: WIN98SE	-	1.5GB	Windows 98SE
	G: WINME	-	1.5GB	none
	H: STORAGE	-	10GB	any FAT
Remaining for Linux	Linux	-	5GB	unfomatted

To this we want to add a Windows Millennium installation to G:

For an example as to why one would possibly want to create a system with both Windows ME and 98, please read the section on "Testing Environment" in the documentation of the sonik-systems.com performance page.

NB The following example works equally well if Windows ME is already installed on G:, and you wish to install Windows 98 to F:. BUT, you will have to temporarily hide the components of your Windows ME OS from the Windows 98 installation process, otherwise it will find this later OS release and halt the install. The best way to do this - crazy as it sounds - is to move all the Windows ME boot files away from the root of C:, and to block move the entire Windows ME installation (on G: in this example) to a new folder, and then hide this folder using the file attribute settings within Windows XP’s Explorer. As long as these files remain hidden and safe, it will be simple to unhide them and move them back once you have finished installing your multi-boot system.

Step One	-	make a copy of C: ROOT directory, as described in the section on protecting your OS.
Step Two	-	copy over the Windows ME setup files from the CD to H: STORAGE.
Step Three	-	boot the machine using an ME DOS BOOT disk.
Step Four	-	run the Windows ME install from ME DOS, installing to partition G: - do not wipe over any previous Windows installs on partition F: (if you attempt to run the install from inside Windows 98, the Windows ME installation will always write over the earlier OS).
Step Five	-	restore the Windows XP Multi-Boot loader.

Restoring the Multi-Boot loader

On rebooting, you will find that, as well as losing the ability to boot to Windows 98, you are also experiencing problems booting into Windows XP. However, all is not lost.

The installation process for Windows ME has written over the master boot sector, which is why Windows XP doesn’t boot, and has written over the system files which handle the booting process, which is why Windows 98 cannot boot.

Firstly, to be able to boot back into Windows XP, you need to run the Recovery Console.

Either insert your Windows XP BOOT disk and choose the option from your boot loader, or run the Windows XP set up from the installation CD and, at the welcome screen, press F10, then select Repair followed by Console.

Type:
FIXBOOT
Specify the PC system partition, in this case C:
Answer Y.

This should re-write your BOOT.INI so you can get into both your versions of Windows XP as well as ME.

If this does not appear to solve the problem, then you may well have to run FIXMBR and/or BOOTCFG as well. Please read in detail the following document for further details:

• http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/repairdualboot.html
  
  

To be able to boot back into Windows 98, you will have to change the following files:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

so that they replicate the same basic C:\ root files for a Windows 98 / XP multi-boot as described in the section on Windows 98 / ME Boot files.

Before doing this, make another copy of the same C: root directory files as before, but place them in a folder called C:\WINME. These are your present Windows Boot files. Now, take the files you originally copied when you were protecting your other OS, (in H:\STORAGE\WINBOOT) and place them in a folder called C:\WIN98.

Copy these same files again to the root directory of C:, overwriting the files that are already there.
Reboot, and you have now restored your Windows 98 multi-boot machine.

However, in so doing, you have made the Windows ME OS disappear from the boot loader. Because both OS share the same set of files, it is not possible to make them both available during the boot launch process. The simplest solution to this problem is to have two copies of these Windows Boot files, one for each separate OS, each stored in a separate folder, and use a DOS batch file to copy them over to the root directory of the C: partition whenever you want to switch OS. So, although you cannot have both Windows ME and 98 on the same boot loader at the same time, you can switch the boot loader itself as you switch the OS boot files, thus allowing both OS to be run on the same machine.

One folder is named WIN98, the other WINME. Each folder contains a copy of the following C: root files:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
CONFIG.SYS
BOOT.INI
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

The contents of each folder should reflect the appropriate OS, as described in the section on Windows 98 / ME Boot files. Please note that although BOOTSECT.DOS works equally well for both OS, the rest of the system boot files are OS specific, including the BOOT.INI. Finally, create two batch files, one for copying the Windows 98 files to C:, one for copying the ME files.

Example of the Windows 98 batch copying file:

xcopy /y/f/h/k/c/r c:\WIN98\*.* c:\*.*
exit

Run the batch file from inside Windows XP and, when you reboot, the appropriate OS will appear inside the boot loader. Run the other batch file and lo, the other OS appears.

Section B - Advanced Multi-Boot Systems - Extras.

2     Installing Linux to any pre-existing Windows XP multi-boot system.

There are a variety of ways of installing and running Linux on multi-boot systems. I have found that the approach outlined below, although a bit fiddly, works well enough for me. I have chosen Slackware as my Linux distribution primarily because it is a small Welsh distribution which installs off two CDs, as opposed to RedHat, which requires up to five Cds and doesn't have the word "slack" in its title. You can of course use any Linux distribution.

NB: This method will temporarily remove any multi-boot loader you may have running alongside your pre-existing Windows XP installation. However, do not be despondent, as it is easy to restore.


Extra Ingredients:

1.      What you need to know:


• A very basic working knowledge of Linux.
  
  
2.      What you need to possess.


• Bootable installation CD for Linux - in this case, Slackware ver 10.0
  
• A Windows XP BOOT disk.
  
  
Downloadable Linux ISO Distributions can be found at:


• http://www.linuxiso.org/
  

Method.

Install Linux to the empty partition at the end of your drive.

The Slackware installation should automatically recognise this partition as empty and offer to format it to EXT2 / EXT3 / ReiserFS and then install Linux to it.

As part of the installation process, you will be prompted to set up a LILO boot loader, which by default will modify and write to the boot sector of the primary partition, overwriting the existing Windows XP multi-boot configuration.

LILO set up should recognise your pre-existing Windows XP installations and also give you the option of running them at the boot prompt, as well as mounting these partitions from within Linux. Details of these mount options are stored within \etc\fstab.

After fully installing Linux (it’s easy, honest!), you should now be able to boot into Linux and into whatever other installations are offered at the LILO prompt. Verify that this is the case.

Now here’s where things get a bit complicated. Read through the following a few times before you attempt anything as stupid as doing this on your own system.

• Boot again off the Slackware installation CD.
  
• Skip through the bulk of the installation process until you reach the option to install LILO again.
  
• You have the choice as to where you can install LILO to - on this occasion, install LILO to the root of the Linux file system, not to the primary partition. This does not overwrite the pre-existing LILO settings in the MBR, but it does add a further LILO record to the root of the Linux file system, on whatever partition it is installed on.
  
• Reboot the machine, and you will now you get a LILO manager prompt (in the primary boot sector) offering the choice of either Linux and Windows XP.
  
• Select Linux, and you get another LILO manager prompt (running from the root of Linux).
  
• Select Linux again and the machine should boot into Linux properly.
  
  

Lilo.conf

In the following example, the assumption is that your Linux installation is on your hda9 partition (whenever possible, Linux installations on multi-boot systems should be placed in or near the last available partition at the end of a drive) and that your kernel image of choice, named "linuz", is situated in the "/boot/" folder.

Edit etc/lilo.conf so that it reflects something like the following:

boot="/dev/hda9"	# Where LILO installs itself.
lba32	# 32-bit logical block addressing (as opposed to linear).
timeout="50"	# Time delay until default boot (tenth of seconds).
root=/dev/hda9
image="/boot/linuz"	# The kernel image.
label="Linux"	# Prompt label.
root="/dev/hda9"	# Location of root file system.
read-only	# Mount the root as read-only at startup.

As there is only one image and no prompt, this LILO manager will not appear to the user unless they interrupt it by pressing the SHIFT key, and even then, they only have 5 seconds to add their own boot options.

Now, as the root user, run lilo to write this new configuration to the boot record.

Now, you need to create an image of this boot record to place on the C: partition so that it can be used by the Windows XP boot loader. This boot record is a image of the first 512 bytes of the Linux root partition hda9, where LILO is installed.

As the root user, from the root of your Linux file system, type:


dd if = dev/hda9 of=/bootsect.lnx bds=512 count=1

Hopefully, you have already mounted your Windows XP partition, so now copy the file you just created - bootsect.lnx - to the root directory of the C: partition. If you have no mounted Windows XP partition, copy the file to a floppy disk and then back to C: when you boot back into Windows XP.

Now you have to remove the first LILO boot loader and restore the MBR, thereby restoring the Windows XP boot loader in the process.

Restoring the Windows XP Boot Loader.

Reboot the machine back to the first LILO boot loader, and boot into Windows XP.
Check that bootsect.lnx is on the root of C:

Using your Windows XP BOOT disk or by running the Windows XP installation CD, boot into the Recovery Console and run:


FIXBOOT.


Reboot the machine again and the Windows XP boot loader should reappear. If it does not, boot back into the Recovery Console and this time run:


FIXMBR.


If this fails to restore the Windows XP boot loader, then please read in detail the following page for further help:


• http://tweakhomepc.virtualave.net/dual/repairdualboot.html
  
  
Now that you are back to using a Windows XP boot loader again, boot back into Windows XP, edit C:\BOOT.INI and add the following line to the bottom of the file:


C:\BOOTSECT.LNX="Linux Slackware"


Now the Windows XP boot loader will permit you to boot into Linux and you have an XP / Linux multi-boot system.
Enjoy.

For more details regarding using LILO or Windows XP as the main boot loader on a multi-boot system, and all things LILO, please read the following references.

• http://www.lugor.org/sig/newbie/lilo/
  
• http://www.linuxgazette.com/issue36/larriera.html
  
• http://www.netadmintools.com/html/5lilo.conf.man.html

Section C - A Quick Guide to help decide on your upgrade method.

There are a total of six methods for upgrading you hard drive described here, all depending on availability of space and hardware.

They are, in order of increasing complexity:

Method One	-	using a second computer either via IDE slave (PC and PC) or 2.5” to 3.5” connectors (PC and laptop) or 2.5” caddy (laptop and laptop)
Method Two	-	using a direct connection between the two drives either via IDE slave (PC) or 2.5” caddy (laptop), and a new OS on the old drive (size dependent) - one OS set up.
Method Three	-	using a direct connection between the two drives either via IDE slave (PC) or 2.5” caddy (laptop), and a new OS on the new drive - two OS set up.
Method Four	-	using a direct connection between the two drives either via IDE slave (PC) or 2.5” caddy (laptop), and the pre-exiting OS (not NTFS and lengthy). - no OS but XCOPY.
Method Five	-	no direct connection, using an external storage device, the pre-existing OS and a new OS on the new drive (not NTFS and lengthy) - uses XCOPY and two OS set up.
Method Six	-	no direct connection, using an external storage device, a new OS on the old drive and a new OS on the new drive (size dependent) - three OS set up.

To help narrow down your method of choice, please select either:

desktop systems or laptops.

Section C - A Quick Guide to help select your upgrade method.

Desktops Systems:
Best Option - method one: no extra OS:

Use a second PC with space running Windows ME or higher, plus a spare IDE connector (works irrespective of system size or format).

• Connect old drive to second PC as a slave.
  
• Boot off PC OS.
  
• Make copy of old drive on second PC.
  
• Shutdown.
  
• Connect new drive to second PC as a slave, partition and format as desired.
  
• Copy image of old drive on second PC to new drive.
  
• Insert new drive back into first PC.
  
• Boot up PC.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  
  
  

Second option - method three: 1 or 2 extra OS (depending on OS installation method):

Create a new OS on a different partition of the new disk, use it to copy the original system to the new C: drive (works irrespective of system size or format).

• Install old disk as a slave
  
• Set up new Windows XP OS on a different partition on new disk, either by:
  

  A	Installing Windows XP directly off CD (slow).
  B	Booting to DOS with CD support. Copying Windows ME or 98 install CD to new disk. Installing Windows ME or 98 onto another partition from hard disk, Copying Windows XP install CD to new disk. Installing Windows XP from Windows ME or 98 from hard disk (potentially quicker).

• Boot to new OS.
  
• Copy old OS to C:
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  

Third option - method two: 1 extra OS:

(works irrespective of original format, but only if space available on original drive):

• Replace original disk as master, set up new disk as slave, partition and format as desired.
  
• Re-partition and install second OS on original disk.
  
• Copy via second OS to new slave.
  
• Set up new disk as master.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  
  

Fourth option - method four: no extra OS, but lengthy:

(does not work with NTFS, necessary to convert to FAT beforehand):

• Replace original disk as master, set up new disk as slave, partition and format as desired.
  
• Create system image on new slave using explorer and BOOT DISK with XCOPY.EXE.
  
• Set up new disk as master.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  
  

Section C - A Quick Guide to help select your upgrade method.

Laptops:
(your choice of method depends both on available hardware and space).
Best Option - method one: no extra OS:

PC with space running Windows ME or higher, 2.5” - 3.5” IDE connector (works irrespective of system size or format).

• Connect old 2.5” drive to PC IDE as slave.
  
• Boot off PC.
  
• Make copy of old 2.5” drive on PC.
  
• Shutdown.
  
• Connect new 2.5” drive to PC IDE as slave, partition and format as desired.
  
• Copy image of old drive on PC to new 2.5” drive.
  
• Insert new 2.5” drive back into laptop.
  
• Boot up laptop.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  
  

Second option - method three: 1 or 2 extra OS:

Create a new OS on a different partition of the new disk, use it to copy the original system to the new C: drive (works irrespective of system size or format but requires a 2.5” USB caddy).

• Set up new Windows XP OS on a different partition on new disk, either by:
  
  

  A	Installing Windows XP directly off CD (slow).
  B	Booting to DOS with CD support. Copying Windows ME or 98 install CD to new disk. Installing Windows ME or 98 onto another partition from hard disk, Copying Windows XP install CD to new disk. Installing Windows XP from Windows ME or 98 from hard disk (potentially quicker).

  
  
• Boot to new OS.
  
• Place old drive inside USB caddy and connect to machine.
  
• Copy old OS to C: directly off old 2.5” disk.
  
• Reboot.
  
• Run volume ID.
  
• Boot to 98 / ME.
  
• Run Setup for Windows XP - follow through installation until:
  “Searching for previous versions of Windows”.
• Select the installation on C:
  
• Select R for restore.
  
• Reboot.
  

Third option - method two: 1 extra OS:

Create a new OS on a different partition of the old disk, use it to copy the original system to the new C: drive (works irrespective of original format or system size, but requires 2.5” USB caddy, repartitioning original drive, and only works if enough space available on original drive).

• Replace original disk into laptop, place new disk in 2.5” USB caddy.
  
• Re-partition and install second Windows XP OS on original disk.
  
• Copy C: via second OS directly to new disk inside 2.5” USB caddy.
  
• Remove new disk from caddy and insert into laptop.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  

Fourth option - method four: 1 extra OS, but lengthy:

Create a system image directly on the new drive (requires a USB 2.5” caddy but does not have any space limitations but, if NTFS, then files system must be converted).

• Replace original disk into laptop, place new disk in 2.5” USB caddy.
  
• Create a system image on 2.5” USB caddy using explorer and XCOPY.EXE.
  
• Remove original disk and insert new disk into laptop.
  
• Run volume ID and recovery console.
  
• Reboot.
  

Fifth option - method six: 2 / 3 extra OS: Needs enough space on original drive, but not a 2.5” USB caddy - longer.

Create a new OS on a different partition of the old disk, use it to copy the original system to an external storage device. Create a secondary OS on the new disk, copy the old OS from the external storage device to the new C: drive (works irrespective of original format or system size, but only if space available on original drive).

• Replace original disk into laptop.
  
• Re-partition and install second Windows XP OS on original disk.
  
• Copy C: via second OS directly to external storage device.
  
• Remove original disk and insert new disk into laptop.
  
• Set up new Windows XP OS on a different partition on new disk, either by:
  

  A	Installing Windows XP directly off CD (slow).
  B	Booting to DOS with CD support. Copying Windows ME or 98 install CD to new disk. Installing Windows ME or 98 onto another partition from hard disk, Copying Windows XP install CD to new disk. Installing Windows XP from Windows ME or 98 from hard disk (potentially quicker).

• Boot to new OS.
  
• Copy image of old drive from external storage device to new C:
  
• Run volume ID.
  
• Boot to 98 / ME.
  
• Run Setup for Windows XP - follow through installation until:
  
  “Searching for previous versions of Windows”
• Select the installation on C:
  
• Select R for restore.
  
• Reboot.
  

Sixth option - a variation of above, but without 2.5” USB caddy and no spare space on old drive - method five: - 2 / 3 extra OS and lengthy.

Create a system image of the old C: drive on an external storage device, create a secondary OS on the new drive, use secondary OS to copy old OS to its new location (does not work with NTFS, need to convert).

Replace original disk into laptop.
Create a system image on an external storage device using explorer and XCOPY.EXE.
Remove original disk and insert new disk into laptop.

• Set up new Windows XP OS on a different partition on new disk, either by:
  

  A	Installing Windows XP directly off CD (slow).
  B	Booting to DOS with CD support. Copying Windows ME or 98 install CD to new disk. Installing Windows ME or 98 onto another partition from hard disk, Copying Windows XP install CD to new disk. Installing Windows XP from Windows ME or 98 from hard disk (potentially quicker).

• Boot to new OS.
  
• Copy image of old drive from external storage device to new C:
  
• Run volume ID.
  
• Boot to Windows 98 / ME.
  
• Run Setup for Windows XP - follow through installation until:
  
  “Searching for previous versions of Windows”
• Select the installation on C:
  
• Select R for restore.
  
• Reboot.
  

Section D - Reference.

Collected Caveats.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons for not carrying out the Audit?

There are none.

- Caveat -
Under what conditions should you consider performing a system strip?

1	Slow transfer speeds, particularly if moving the system image over a network.
2	Minimal space on external storage device for whole of C:
3	With no direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE) and no access to a second computer with a direct connection between itself and your hard drives, if there is potentially enough space for an extra OS on the original disk after the strip and repartitioning, then installing an extra Windows XP OS is a better way of copying the system to an external storage device than using XCOPY.EXE. You should perform a strip.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons why you should not bother to perform the Hardware Check?

You are running a PC without any add-ons / PCMCIA slots etc, with only one current hardware profile in use.

- Caveat -
Why you can’t use a second computer to perform the system copy.

You have no means of connecting your system’s drives directly to the computer. If both systems are PC, then there should be no problem here, but If you are using a PC to upgrade a laptop, you will need a 2.5” - 3.5” IDE connector, If you are using a laptop to upgrade a laptop, you will need a 2.5” caddy of some description, and If you are using a laptop to upgrade a PC, you will need a 3.5” caddy of some description.

- Caveat -
What are the reasons for not needing to install a second Windows XP OS on your original drive.

You do not enough spare space on the original drive (even after strip). Or you have either: A direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE). or: Access to second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.

- Caveat -
What are the conditions which require the creation of the system image using XCOPY.EXE.

1	You have no direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE).
2	You have no access to a second computer with a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.
3	You do not have enough spare space on the original drive (even after strip) to create a second Windows XP OS.

- Caveat -
Are there any reasons for not checking the total file count?

There are none.

- Caveat -
One situation where you are required to convert the NTFS to FAT32.

You need to use XCOPY.EXE to create the system image.

- Caveat -
Four situations where you are not required to convert the NTFS to FAT32.

1	You are doing this on a PC.
2	You have a direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE).
3	You have access to second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.
4	You have enough spare space on the original drive (after stripping it down) to create a second Windows XP OS.

- Caveat -
Why do you need to install a new OS onto an alternative partition on your new drive?

You are using an external storage device. You have neither: A direct connection between the hard drive and the OS (laptops via 2.5” caddy, PC via IDE). nor: Access to a second computer with a means of establishing a direct connection between itself and your hard drives.

- Caveat -
If you already have Windows 98 or ME running on the new disk, why do you also have to have to install a new version of Windows XP?

Whatever drive Windows 98 / ME is installed to and runs from, it still creates and locks up part of the C:\WINDOWS directory when in use, making it impossible to copy over a new system completely onto a C: drive. If Windows XP is installed to a different drive that C:, it can run independently of the C: drive, and is therefore capable of manipulating any pre-existing system on C:. So, faced with the prospect of finding and deleting the locked files in DOS and then copying over the system image (again in DOS), it is better practice to run another installation of Windows XP from an entirely different partition and use it to access the C: directory.

Section D - Reference.

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