2Turtles

You'll note that in my second post I had already found clonezilla (I have in fact learned a few things from you here already) what I was asking for was help as to which method to choose to use the program. Anyway the point is now moot as I just finished installing everything from scratch again - it's on the 10 gig now.

lol sorry, I should have phrased things better. I don't think the install is botched in any way, I think this used hdd is melting down so I wanted to get my install off of it if possible. It's likely the guy sold it for this exact reason - intermittent working. The drive itself is humming and it's lights have gone out (I have had the tower open for a week so I've been able to see it and the light until now has been on). It seems if I disconnect it, tilt it a little and reconnect it, it comes back on one out of every 5 times to the regular o/s as if nothing happened (that's what I meant by "screwing around with it" my apologies for the language). I can't remember the whole thing about the boot sector at the moment, it was about reading it and I assumed it was because the drive was getting power but not spinning - anyway I will try to get it to bring the message up again and post the full comment. I just wanted to avoid doing it too many times without being able to copy the drive in some way for fear that it will cease spinning permanently instead of just intermittently. Added info: my cables and mobo are all okay as all other drives work without problems, I have swapped each into every position and everyone is happy regardless of the slot/cable/position they are allotted. I have 3 hdds (10, 40, 160), 1 cd burner and 1 cd/dvd burner - the machine is arranged to run 2 drives and 1 burner, but I have tried them all in all positions just to be sure. I'll try to get that blue screen to come up again and write down everything it says, thanks for the reply I'll report back

Googling has suggested I might be able to use this clonezilla program - I am unsure however which option I should choose as I don't know what to call what it is I am trying to do, they all basically sound the same (at least to me) and the "disk to disk clone" one sounds right except I want to do the opposite ie: I want to clone a larger disk to a smaller one... Save disk image Description: Save 1st disk (hda) as an image on 2nd disk (hdb) (Step by step) Restore disk image Description: Restore an image on 2nd disk (hdb) to 1st disk (hda) (Step by step) Disk to disk clone Description: Clone small disk to larger disk (e.g. 8 GB to 12 GB) (Step by step) jaclaz if your out here can you please tell me in ordinary language what I want to do and if this is the right program to use? You always seem to know the simple way to explain things to those like me who in all honesty don't understand technically what they're doing but can follow straight forward directions on faith!

I can't believe after all the help I got here and what I thought was finally a successful install that I am here again - already Last night after finally finishing the install of all drivers/software/programs/printer etc. onto our "new" W2K computer, today when I booted up there is a "boot sector..." blue screen thing happening now. This is, unfortunately, a used hard drive I bought and I should have known better after all the trouble I had with it to begin with (another thread here and greatfully solved by jaclaz). But I did run all the manufacture and other tests, and they did say the drive passed so I thought I was just being paranoid. Apparently not because it lasted nicely for about 3 days on and off but now this. I think if I screw around with it long enough I can get it to come back 1 more time (hopefully) and so I want to copy it to a different smaller hdd I have. What I don't know is if I can copy a 10GB partition onto a 10GB drive (not partition) and if I can, how to do it. You see I made the W2K boot partition NTFS (10GB NTFS boot + 30GB Fat32 storage on a 40GB drive) but my only other working drive is this win98 I'm on right now and it can't see the NTFS partition... Do I have to start installing all over from scratch again or is there a way to copy a partition only to a full hdd and have it boot up? If this is a hardware thing and I'm in the wrong spot - my apologies.

Thank you so much for the suggestion awergh I tried copying just the setup files but it did not work, so I copied the whole disc to the C: drive. It worked with some complaints along the way about being unable to read some .hlp files and 2 others .srg. I just said "ignore" and it finished. I had done some other things before but they did not seem to work - well not correctly anyway: I tried copying our win98 Office 97 folder to a usb stick and pointing it there, which didn't solve the odd upgrade issue, but did let me run the program, except with complaints at each document opening (mom would not have approved lol). I found that hatten.ttf file on the Office97 disc and copied it to WINNT/Fonts, and followed the XP fix from microsoft - but that did nothing either. Finally I copied my original win98 install files from that usb disc directly to the Win2K C: drive - a straight install from the cd now didn't work either, but they (usb 98 files) were still there when I copied the full disc over and ran from there so I can't swear they didn't have something to do with it working. Just thought I'd note that here in case someone else ever encounters this as I haven't got time to uninstall everything and clean it up to see if it would have worked without them. I will however, have to install Office97 on the second hand XP computer we just got (it has office XP 2003, but mom doesn't like it) so If I encounter the issue again I shall use the same method - without the usb 98 files in the mix to see what happens. I'll leave the XP install clean and won't install the office XP 2003 of course, as that might confuse the issue. Thanks again! Cheers

I've been trying to "update" our computer to win2k, it has proven very problematic and time consuming for me. Around every corner there seems to be another issue My mom uses Office 97, I have tried to get her to like Open Office but she is used to her old program and so I must install it one way or another. This is a full version, a proper disc with a proper license and I have installed it on our win98 machine repeatedly without any issues. However, when I try to install it on the freshly created win2k hard drive it insists that it is an "upgrade" and cannot find any qualifying products. After googling I have found this is a known issue, but the only solutions I have read seem not to apply to win2k - ie: the simplest fix i found was to rename a font called hatten.tff, but that font is not on this machine. Has anyone else had this experience trying to install Microsoft Office Professional Edition with SR1 onto Windows 2000 Professional? I have read that I could download and install products from the "box list" but don't want to install unknown/unnecessary programs to make a disc work that should be working anyway! I had absolutely no problems during any installation on our win98 machine over the years, and that drive was also a clean install and there were, and are, no "box list" programs on that machine either. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thank you for that link Kurt I understand what it can do and I think it is excellent - I wish I could use it even more now! Unfortunately it is far too complex for me. I don't think I have enough "pre-installed" computer language skills to sort through it and make it work. I'm just an artist so my brain is far less ordered than the brilliance that shines in here. By page 3 of that thread I was completely lost ...but I did finish reading it all To be honest I thought it was going to be only slightly more difficult than making my UBCD and running hard drive tests. Heck I couldn't even get the torrent download to work from that thread and I've been using utorrent for years lmao! If you ever feel merciful and create the "nLite for Dummies" thread I'll be back - but tonight I still don't have the w2k machine going and I've got 2 XP's and the dreaded Vista to do right after. This may be breezy for you all but I only ever used win98 until 3 days ago (well, I had a dual boot with W2K for a very short while, but that was an abysmal failure and remains a thorn in my memories). Cheers

Well I installed win2k the slow way then USP5 then NET Framework 2.0 then the video driver then .nLite... I ran the program and made the .iso bootable with Nero (Express 6) the disc boots to A: but that's it, if I switch to e: dir it shows only 1 file - winlite.iso I have the early win2000 pro disc that was not bootable, it has 4 floppies with it - is this why it has not worked, or have I made an error making the .iso? I have made bootable discs that work with this Nero version/installation just 2 days ago... If I copy each floppy contents to the .iso will it make it a bootable CD? thanks for any advice

Yes that is my XP post too but I thought since thanks to this forum my other hdd is now fixed and I need to put win2k on it, I would do that one first since I have a proper Win2000 Pro disc and I built the machine so no junk! I have read the nLite guides and am fairly confident, but I do not have the natural understanding of things that most of you here have so I'd like to ask for clarification. 1. I read that I can "slipstream UnOfficial SP5 into my original disc" (I understand that is figurative and that I will have to create a new disc) with nLite, but that I will need .NET Framework 2.0 - I have done a search of my cd and found no such file - is this file under another name in a .cab or should I just find .NET Framework online to download? 2. It options to integrate drivers - this I want very much - but, the system I am preparing the new win2k disc on is win98 and I get the impression that nLite would be looking at the system folder for the drivers to integrate, is this the case? If so, then would I have to first set up the entire machine as win2k and run nLite again so it could collect the proper drivers? ----2b. The video driver for my machine requires dx9 installed first - as I understand it, dx9 never made it into USP5 - question: can it (dx9) be slipstreamed now as well, or must I install it separately and/or leave the video driver off of the new cd? I guess what I'm asking is, if both were on the cd how do you control, or can you control which is installed first? I think that's pretty much it, I am eager to try nLite as I have already wasted 1 entire day fighting with video drivers after fresh installing win2k only to find out it was because I did not yet have SP4 installed... once I have succeeded here I will return to targeting that Gateway machine with XP... okay I'm back already - I went to get .NET Framework 2.0 and now am wondering: If I have to have SP3 installed in order to install .NET Framework which has to come before nLite will work... then I basically have to set up the win2k box the regular way anyway? I did not get that impression the first time I read all the posts...

Not only can I not use it - I cannot see it! It is 3GB and locked. However, I was mistaken initially as the previous owner was kind enough to pass along the Gateway book and inside is the original XP disc. Well it is a Gateway disc, but it says XP Home Edition Operating System Disc. This one I can look at and it has the i386 and other files: I think now (hope) this means I can use nLite? But, what is locked on the D: drive? why locked if the o/s disc is provided? Is this where all the extra programs that stuff up the system are hiding? Must also be where the hardware drivers are too since there are no more discs and I have not seen any folders for original component drivers and they have to restore from somewhere... If I delete that partition what will happen to the system? I don't want to get off topic as this is nLite forum, but again, all parts of this pc (o/s, configuration style etc.) are new to me so I'm just making sure not to do damage that cannot be undone. Please direct me to the right forum and I will continue questions there and only discuss my nLite attempt here

jaclaz Once again you have simplified and solved that which masquerades as disaster... Thank you so much

Thanks again jaclaz, I have downloaded the UBCD .iso and already had imgburn (must have been from one of last years learning adventures here ) I had already started a "zero-fill" attempt with Maxblast 4 again before you had replied and since it was 37% I thought I might as well let it finish. I see now that the UBCD already has a newer Maxblast 5 on it, should I let Mblast 4 finish it's zero-fill business or are there different types of "00" writing and I'm using the wrong program anyway?

Cheers for the reg hack -X-! I can't look at the partition right now as that machine is currently occupied wiping another hard-drive with issues - but when it's done I will look for the i386 folder. You certainly aren't kidding when you say there is all kinds of useless crap added by the manufacturer - I have never owned a brand name machine before and had no idea! The previous owner restored it to factory before I bought it and holy baloney I'm surprised there isn't a McDonald's advert and a 3-day sample of Viagra on here somewhere :rofl: So what do people do if their hard drive disintegrates on one of the pre-fab boxes and they have no recovery partition? I don't know if I can manage this new o/s without being able to control the installation to my liking. Once you get it the way you want it can you make that the "factory default" or is it always going to stuff it's guts to overflowing when you need a fresh install?

nLite sounds like it is exactly what I need to get rid of all the XP junk that is making me crazy trying to learn this new o/s, but this new machine I bought second hand, and did not build like my beloved win98 machine so I have no XP discs for it. It has a thing called "recovery partition" which I know nothing about how to work, on top of having zero XP experience. I find it so hard to navigate, everything is called something different and looks different and seems to take 20 steps now instead of 2. The new "search" function on XP makes me swear every day at least 10 times! What was wrong with Find files and folders?? One click and type in what you need and it's found - why on earth does anyone need a comical dog and 600 questions and choices to find a simple file?? I want to be rid of so much stuff on here, sorry for ranting like a madman - but I have 3 computers to set up for this house now and 1 is win2k which I'm no too scared of as it looks like win98, then is XP which hurts my brain and last is Vista and I'm getting an ulcer thinking how much harder it will be than XP... If I can use nLite with a "recovery partition" can someone please point me to the instructions for how to do it? I would also appreciate any experienced XP users to tell me which are the best programs to get rid of immediately and good first tweaks for a quick system as this has only 512 ram. This is a Gateway GT5244e tower with cd/dvd burner and no floppy drive. It has XP home on d: recovery partition. I would be quite grateful for any help and good directions to links, or reading or even personal experience opinions please!

**update 2** My fault with the bootable thing - so now I've used the Power2Go to make the disc bootable, but when it boots from the cd all it says it this: 1. FD 1.44MB System Type-(00) I think it's saying it's a floppy, but this computer didn't come with a floppy - just cd/dvd. There weren't any other HDDerase image files to use, I don't know what to do now This is very hard with this XP machine as I don't know anything about this o/s and it is very hard to find anything. Unzipping is not easy, burning simple cd was very problematic, it has constant pop-ups for so many things complaining about security, updates, what do you want to do? every time you open that **** cd drive... etc. etc.. etc.. does this thing never shut up?? Anyway I sure hope I don't have to use any more XP to fix this hdd - I have a rotten headache now.