Copying one HD to another

M

MewSkitty

New Member
I recnetly got a new HD for my very old computer. I got the computer for free so I don't have the instal disk for the OS. Anyways, when I tried copying all the data from my 6GB HD to my new 20GB hard drive, when I connected the new one up after the copying I got the following error message:

PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting PXE
Strike F1 to reboot, F2 for setup

Here's the thing, when I replace my CR-ROM with the new HD for copying files it worked just fine. Since my computer only has enough room and power for one HD I have to replace my CD-ROM if I'm to use a second HD. I don't know of this will be of any use, but here's my computer specs:

OS: Windows 98SE
Proccessor: Pentium 2 400MHz
64MB RAM

If you have any questions I will try and anser them for you. If you think you can contact me right away for help, my AIM screen name is MewtwoSkitty
 
First of all you will have need for a Welcome to the Computer Forum! http://www.computerforum.com/70672-official-welcome-thread.html And the usual reminder given to new members to be sure to review the http://www.computerforum.com/52038-forum-rules.html

One likely reason why the error messages are seen is the new drive is probably set as master where it will easily work when using the end of the secondary cable. When adding a second drive you are generally better off slaving it to the primary hard drive on the middle connector there. Take a look at the jumper setting on the rear of the drive itself to see where that is set to. If cable select as seen when new drives are shipped you would set that to the SL or SA for slave and plug in the middle connector on the primary ide cable.

Have you partitioned and formatted the new 20gb drive? Besides jumper settings an unpartitioned drive won't be seen in 98SE. If you need to partition and format the drive you may want to grab the updated version of FDISK found at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=263044

The newer versions of Windows(XP, Vista) have their own partitioning and formatting tools included in the installer. For making up a boot floppy first and then replacing the original fdisk with the update for large drive support go to http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
 
What's the point in partitioning the drive if I have no data to write to the new partition? Also, before when I tried to partition the drive with Partition Magic 8.0 is said the fileing system was BAD/OTHER and when I tried to format it under FAT32, which according to my OS it was already in FAT32 format, it said script error and wouldn't format or partition it.
 
When you first get a new drive it has to be partitioned and formatted for the OS you are using. If you are running an old flat top style desktop or a small case with only a single hard drive bay but have two 5 1/4" bays you could have the second drive mounted in a 5 1/4" adapter to have the two HDs and the cd drive as well.

Partition Magic won't format the drive. That will only create a new partition. The fdisk utility will also create new partitions as well. Once you have a new partition you would then use the "format C: /s" command if you are booting up from a 98 startup floppy or bootable 98 cd.

Once a partition is formatted it is then ready for use since it now will have a logical drive letter assigned to it by the Windows installation on the first 6gb drive. Your main concern is to see if the drive is detected properly by looking at the post screen when starting the system. If you don't see it listed there is the drive's jumper setting. If that is not set correctly Partition Magic or even fdisk will be able to do anything.
 
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