Is there a way to do this?

[DMKA]

Ok, so my friend gave me this computer and he didn't give me the restore CD with it. Anyway, I put my 20GB hard drive in it because his hard drive was only 6.4GB and I couldn't work with that, and theres not enough hookups in the computer for a second hard drive (unless I minus my CD burner or DVD drive, which isn't happening). Well, i was forced to install Windows ME and well...ME has been horrible on this computer. I want windows 98 Second Edition (which is what this computer came with and is meant to run on), and the other hard drive (the 6.4GB one) has Windows 98 Second Edition installed on it, but I don't have the CD. So I was wondering...is there a way for me to get Windows 98 Second Edition from that hard drive to this one without the CD?

[Endless]

IDE connections go by pairs, you have two slots that are channels (primary, secondary) on your motherboard, each slot has one cable with two plugs (where you plug a master device and a slave device). If one of your cables only has one, go buy one in any comp store, it costs almost nothing and will allow you to plug the second hd.

[DMKA]

There are no comp stores here.

I suppose I have a new question though...is there ANY way to install windows 98SE when you have windows millenium installed? Because I now have the files and everything I need to install (I tested it on another HD and it works) but windows ME says its an older version and it won't allow it. >__<

[Dr Unne]

Format the HD. Then boot from the install CD.

[DMKA]

But thats my whole issue...I don't have the install cd...my whole point was a way of doing it without the install cd. :/

[Dr Unne]

Sorry, I was answering your new question. You can install 98 onto a system than has ME if you format the HD.

So far as the original question, If you copy all the files from a working installation of 98 onto a blank hard drive, it probably won't work. For example, you'd still need to install a bootloader into the MBR. And if you're actually booted into 98 when you try this, Windows might protect certain files from being access and copied, so to be safe I'd guess that you'd need to be booted from a THIRD media (maybe a Knoppix CD) to do the transfer. And you're likely to miss all the hidden files when you do the copy, a lot of which are system files, read-only, etc. I don't know if Windows internally keeps track of things like the size of the partition it's been installed to. I do know that it internally keeps track of a lot of hardware settings, and I don't know how many of those will be dynamically reconfigured if you drop the whole OS into a foreign system. All the drivers for all the hardware will be busted and will need replaced, unless the new hardware is exactly like the old hardware on the system on which 98 was originally installed. I have a hard time imagining Windows surviving something that drastic.

What's wrong with ME? It's basically exactly the same as 98, other than looking slightly different and being more prone to crashing, but it also has better native support for more hardware (I think), and some other crap someone somewhere might like. If you cared about things like not crashing, I doubt you'd be using Windows in the first place. 98, ME, same bunch of crap, in my opinion.

[Baloki]

Pick up a 98 CD off E-bay for a fiver, problem solved

[crono_logical]

It'll probably come without a CD key

[Baloki]

It'll probably come without a CD key

So? He has a CD Key on the exsisting drive, he can just read that our the regestry and wolla

[crono_logical]

I wasn't aware you could mix and match CD keys from any installation with any other installation of the same Windows products - otherwise acquiring/creating lists of working keys on the internet would be trivial

[Baloki]

I wasn't aware you could mix and match CD keys from any installation with any other installation of the same Windows products - otherwise acquiring/creating lists of working keys on the internet would be trivial

Upto 2000 you could, its only XP that you couldn't because they introduced activation, thats why 98SE was considered the most pirated version of any software in the world and still is

[DMKA]

Well problem solved...I love kazaa.

Umm as for why I use windows? Please tell me what else do I use? I do video editing constantly...macs won't rip DVDs, and Linux won't run any professional editing software. So if theres anything else thats compatable with damn near everything like windows is and isn't super complicated like Linux then please point me in its direction and I'll take it thanks.

Oh, and Windows 95 and 98SE have never crashed on me...ever, and I've been using them since 1998. Windows ME never crashed on me until I got this computer and I had been using it for 3 years on my other one, so please don't tell me that windows crashes like crazy and everything else is fine and dandy cause, for you that may be the case, but not for me...also, Mac is hell and I used Linux but once and it freezes like hell, so I dunno...

Its the same thing with Internet Explorer...I hear the constant bitching about how horrible it is, but besides the lack of tabbed browsing I've yet to see any problems with it in all the time I've used it and yet firefox is slow and freezes on me all the time, though I have became addicted to tabbed browsing.

I don't get it.

[Baloki]

Don't forget you need a CD key though

[crono_logical]

You've just been lucky then Though I'll admit the simplicitly of digital video editing is the main reason I keep WinXP as my main OS, otherwise almost everything else I do I also know how to do in linux

[Dr Unne]

Who said not to use Windows? I just said there aren't many differences between ME and 98, so I don't see why you'd go to the trouble of finding 98 when you already have ME.