On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 15:38:13 -0700 (MST), Alan Dayley
<
alandd@consultpros.com> wrote:
> Rob Wultsch said:
>
>
> > Howdy. I need to copy a windows 98 install to a small hard drive. :(
> > Basically all I am concerned about is that I am not sure which dd
> > command I shoould use to copy over the boot loader thing which boot
> > windows.
> >
> > Assuming that the larger (origingal) disk is hda and the new (smaller)
> > disk is hdb and all the normal files have been copied over what is the
> > dd command I need to use?
>
> The boot process starts at LBA 0 which is the Master Boot Record (MBR).
> The command to copy that block would be:
>
> dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=512 count=1
>
> HOWEVER, the MBR contains partition information too. By default the
> larger hard drive will have different partition information than the
> smaller one will. If you execute the above command, you will wipe out the
> primary partition tables on the small disk with the tables on the large
> disk. I assume you don't want to do that.
>
> Plus, the actual boot code is not in the MBR but is located elsewhere.
> The elsewhere can be different for depending on the drive capacity and the
> partitioning scheme.
>
> So, I think you need to explain a bit more about what you have done to
> reach this point.
>
> In the past I have done this sort of process differently:
> - Install Win98 from CD fresh on the new hard drive. Make sure it boots
> clean when you are done.
> - Connect the old hard drive as the slave.
> - Now copy all the files from the old drive to the new, using filesystem
> commands from a bootable Linux CD.
>
> This moves all the data and programs while maintaining any possibly unique
> configurations that the new drive now contains in it's boot and partition
> information. The drawback is doing a full Win98 install but I haven't
> bothered to learn any tricks around that.
>
> Alan
Thanks for the tips. I knew all of the above and was hoping to get
around a full install as I am dealing with an ancient laptop that will
not boot from cdrom. I will dd a bunch with it because it will take
forever to reinstall everything. I will report back if I find anything
worth note.
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