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Adventures in Backup and Restoring With W2000



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What follows relates to using the W2000 built-in backup program.

Restoring backups for W2000 can only be done on (with) an existing OS.
Many of us upgraded to W2000 from W9x which keeps the systemroot
directory labeled as WINDOWS (I only have the upgrade CD so all that
follows is my experience with it). If the W2000 backup/restore program
is used to restore to a new installation of W2000 a problem comes up due
to the new installation labeling the systemroot directory as WINNT (with
a clean installation (but not an upgrade) it is possible to name the
systemroot directory WINDOWS using the Advance Options, but see 2.
below). What follows is rough idea of how I handled getting WINDOWS as
the systemroot directory in an new installation of W2000. Partition
Magic 6 was used to partition, change drive letters, and format.

 The backup from the upgraded W2000 retains all references to the
WINDOWS directory but a new (clean) installation of W2000 labels the
systemroot directory as WINNT (except if the installation is run from a
current OS starting from  SETUP.EXE in the root directory on the CD,
then you can select the installation folder name as WINDOWS, but see 2.
below). I tried to change the references from WINNT to WINDOWS using the
PC Mag utility, COA, but that did not work here.

A restore to C:\WINNT just adds a new directory, C:\WINDOWS, which is
incomplete and will not boot. From a second OS, WINNT in the new W2000
can be renamed WINDOWS and the restoration will go there but for me this
only booted about half way before stopping. What is needed is a
C:\WINDOWS on the W2000 installation (with C:\ for the drive letter). 

What follows assumes 2 HD on the computer, one master and one slave
which receives the backup.

A. The master HD completely dies and had only one OS. 

Remove all video cards except one and ZIP drive (I have 2 video cards
for 2 monitors and this caused much grief in the restore process until I
remove one, which was later reinstalled). Get a new HD and install W95
starting with a W95 boot floppy , then go to the W95 CD. This will
labeled the root directory as C:\Windows. Now install W2000, do not
bother with any settings or applications as restore will (mostly) take
care of these. (W2000 could be installed on the new HD by using the 4
setup floppies (made from a previous W2000) but there is no choice in
naming the systemroot directory). Now restore to original position. Add
video cards back and set any parameters that may not work (e.g. network
connections). 

B. HD has 2 bootable OS on it and the main OS fails (of course, try
first the ERD and the recovery console).

1. Format the partition of the failed OS and do A. above. (I read it is
recommend that W95/98 not be installed after W2000 due to boot.ini being
overwritten. Just note this file on a good 2 bootable OS and duplicate
it).

2. Alternately, from the good OS, W2000 could be installed to a WINDOWS
directory on the second formatted partition by clicking SETUP.EXE in the
root directory on the W2000 CD, which will led to Advance Options. 
Except the drive letter for it would be a letter other than C:\ (for me
it was H:\) due to the good OS now being C:\.  The H:\WINDOWS was
bootable but I did not want that setup because apps want to install to
C:\. I could not find a way to change the H: to C:. 

C. HD has 2 bootable OS on it and both fail (HD dies) or you want 2
bootable OS on a new HD .

 Use Partition Magic (or other like product) and format 2 partitions and
install 2 copies of W95, followed by 2 of W2000 via A. above. Use the 2
Partition Magic "rescue disks" to change which partition is active
before installing each W95. 

W95 does allows the systemroot directory to be named WINNT (which if, I
had done 6 years ago on the original W95 the current problem would be
solved) but since my backup references WINDOWS I am stuck with it. Kind
of a Catch 22.

I guess the moral here is, if using the built-in backup (or any other
backup), you better try your backup method on a clean HD to see if it
works as expected.