OT need help/advise installing new sytem drive PLEEEEEZE!!

[graveleye]

Western Digitals website seems to be good and dead for the weekend when I need it. I am installing a WD 60g HDD in the process of upgrading one of my older computers. I will be copying the entire old drive to the new.
I have followed to a T all of WDs instructions, and when it comes time to reboot using their software on the floppy drive it fails. The startup menu gives me a message that says "cannot read DOS" and it hangs. I pull the floppy out and it boots fine with the old drive. The floppy drive is working fine, but for some reason just will not allow this boot disc to work.
A few weeks ago someone gave me a link to an HDD discussion furum which I cannot seem to find now. Someone please help me!! [img]images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

[Stone Knife]

Do you have access to PowerQuest's Partition Magic? There is a Drive Copy utility in there that will allow you to do just what you are attempting.
I haven't tried the WD copy utility (and probably won't -from the sound of it)
I can't get through to them from Seattle, either.

[mjames08]

Or you could try a newer version of norton ghost which will also do the same thing..

[silence_of_stone]

I will give them a try - THANKS!!!
But doesnt windows need to reckognize the new disc first in order to be able partition and transfer files?

[Stone Knife]

That's a good question... What really needs to happen is that your BIOS recognizes the disk.

I haven't used the DriveCopy utility (I just own it) so can't tell ya for sure. I need to make a correction, too: DriveCopy is included in DriveImage, not Partition Magic (the two make an excellent computer tool kit, BTW, and no, I don't work for PQ)

You know, you can use a Win 9x boot disk to start the drive and format it into FAT 32... I imagine this is the approach that Drive Copy takes with a 'virtual' floppy, before doing the transfer.

It is too bad that you're trying to save the stuff on your original, because you can now just boot WinXP right from a CD and install it onto a fresh new drive without doing anything to the drive beforehand. XP will, according to Maxtor, just do the formatting during it's install. I will be able to tell you if that is actually the case next week.

In the meanwhile, you might want to visit powerquest.com and check out their DriveImage utility... it has a featurecalled SmartSector which preserves your settings -according to the company, Ghost does not.

[silence_of_stone]

Well Stone, Western Digitals site just came back up so I did a quick search for the "cant load DOS" error and here is what they said:

Some systems run into an error when trying to use the Caldera version of DOS that the Data Lifeguard Tools disk uses. The easiest way around this problem is to boot to a Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millennium Startup Disk.

When you get to the <b>A: prompt, insert the Data Lifeguard Tools disk, type <b>DLGEZ for version 2.8 of the tools or <b>DLGDG for version 10, then press ENTER.

This will skip the DOS front-end program and take you directly into the install program.

To get the most current version of Data Lifeguard Tools click on the link below.

So do you think I can just boot to DOS, then use DOS to open up the Lifeguard Utes? Seems like what they are saying. some of this is so vague. I think they were wanting a boot disc assuming I did not already have windows installed on the old drive.
I want XP, but this is my wifes computer for one, and not used a lot, and for two its just not in my budget at the time. If I get XP then its going on the PT computer first.
So what do you think about thier response?
kev