Swap c: drive from another computer?

S

SLP Firehawk

Limp Gawd
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Jan 30, 2020
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I have 2 Win98 PCs. One is a P3 and the other a P2. Besides CPU they have much different hardware GPU, sound, monitors, ATA card, etc.
Can I hardware bit by bit clone the C: from the P3 and install it in my P2 and once booted install the correct drivers?
Or will that cause damage to my hardware since all the drivers will be wrong?

It would save me a lot of time since I'm having trouble getting the P2 to do a fresh win98 install due to failed c:/ and other issues
 
From what I remember trying to do that many years ago, no it likely wont work at all. I think mine just completely locked up trying to boot. I also did it once with XP and it kinda worked but was very unstable, ended up just doing a full reinstall. Only time I did that and it worked was on windows 7.
 
Back in the XP days there was a tool called Sysprep that would make the current install into a mini setup with no specific hardware drivers running. That is what I used to move my XP installs to new hardware.
I have no idea if there was a tool like that or that tool back in the Win98 days, though.
 
I'd vote for unlikely to work, but maybe? It's been a long time since I dealt with win98. Are you cloning to a new disk, or trying to reuse the failing disk?

If it's to a new disk, include the installer files, worst case, boot to dos 7 probably still works and you can reinstall from the c drive?
 
If you're ok with digging files out of the internet archive, a search for sysprep for win98 reveals an interesting thread on another forum with a mysterious zip file. But I'd probably just try it first and see, and do a fresh install from installer files if not, rather than sysprepping.
 
I'f I'm understanding this, my computer has the old C: drive out of an old pc. even has windows on it. I just plugged it in. works just fine. never wiped it or anything.
 
Westwood said:
I'f I'm understanding this, my computer has the old C: drive out of an old pc. even has windows on it. I just plugged it in. works just fine. never wiped it or anything.
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yeah but which windows? 7/8/10/11 all adapt, earlier releases not so much. i dont recall being able to transplant like that with 98, would never work right.
 
pendragon1 said:
yeah but which windows? 7/8/10/11 all adapt, earlier releases not so much. i dont recall being able to transplant like that with 98, would never work right.
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ah, definitely not 98.

10. I'm on Win10. No idea on the donor drive.
 
Westwood said:
ah, definitely not 98.

10. I'm on Win10. No idea on the donor drive.
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10/11 have the best adaptability. ive transplanted a 10 ssd between dozens of different system configs and its always "setting up new hardware" reboot, reboot and then up and running. install a couple drivers or just use windows update and its gtg.
 
This was problematic as recently as Windows 7.

It was a longshot even by the end of the XP years. Vista was the first version where it would sorta work but you'd still usually have registry goblins.
 
I've done it with Win7 several times and with 3 different machines. Keeping a clone system drive ready to swap in saves a lot of time.
 
It's rare for a clone to be a problem, but I've seen it.
 
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