Removable Drive, Different Specs

Hey guys, i know i havent been around for ages but my life is pretty hectic. Good to let you all know ive got a great job now as a computer/network tech for a good company :)

Anyways, here is my problem;

I have two machines, 1) P4 3.0, 512Mb, intel GAVL board. 2) P3 800, 128mb, tnt2 vid.

Now, these are two completely different boxes and the mainboard of computer 1 (p4 3.0) is NOT supported by windows 98. I have a removable harddrive with win98 installed on it. Everything was working great, put it into the new computer, and of course no drivers anywhere for it.

i looked and looked and couldnt find any support for this board and win98, so i put xp on instead (doesnt matter how, fresh or upgrade) So now the harddrive works well with computer 1 and its all great.

Now, when i went to put it back into computer 2, noticably because of the large hardware change winxp is going to have problems :D So it doesnt boot, it freezes (it doesnt blue screen....yet) and it freezes at mup.sys

Firstly, will disabling mup.sys in the recovery console fix this problem? If so then all is good.

I am looking for a way to have a removable harddrive run on both machines. The operating system DOES NOT matter. So, to me the easiest solution would be to get drivers for the GAVL mobo for win98, if someone finds them excellent.

The other way, would be to have xp running, which would handle both hardware fine, but then there is the issue of licensing and xp blue screening or freezing because of this hardware change.

I would like to note that i have Xp Pro SP2 with license and requires activation. and i also have XP pro (no service packs) on CD with valid cd key but does not require activation :D

With all that in mind, what would be the best way to setup the config im looking for. I would like the removable drive to be operative on both computers. I should also note that after i installed xp on the drive, i created 2 hardware profiles (old computer, new computer) thinking that when on comp1 i choose new computer profile, and on comp2 choose old computer profile.... back to the part where i put the drive in comp2 and it froze... So i cant get into windows to setup the old computer profile correctly..... other thoughts are that im barking up the wrong tree in this regard, as the hardware change is too dramatic.

Please let me know anyways

Cheers guys


CTO

[edit] I still think the best and easiest way is to find drivers to work with win98 and the GAVL board [/edit]

Wotcher cobber :D

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other thoughts are that im barking up the wrong tree in this regard, as the hardware change is too dramatic.

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Yes, I am afraid that is probably the case. After all, the issue is getting the Win98 to recognise the environment.

OK, two very dirty POMMY solutions ;)

1. Can you upgrade to Win98SE?
2. Get the WinME upgrade disk...............(swop you mine for a half dozen prime Sydney funnel webs......only blokes of course!)

I have encountered this problem when I "inherited" some old Digital kit with removable HDDs from a defence site I was working at. The stuff would not accept Win98, only 98SE or ME............please remember that ME needs a lot of RAM (384-512 recommended)

Cheers

Johnno

Mup.sys might indicate you have some networking problems..
Do both machines have a networkcard?

You could try to install the driver for the networkcard of the P3 machine while running on the P4.
When asked to reboot, shutdown instead.. Move the drive over to the P3 and see what happens..

You could also try installing XP the other way around... Install XP while running on the P3 then move the drive over to the P4..

Edit: XP doesn't perform well on 128MB. But it should be enough to install and run.

Hi Bruce,

I have re-read your post and am a little confused. It appears that you have got the movable drive to work on your new machine, and have now installed WinXP on it?

This drive will not boot up on the second machine now?

That is hardly surprising, as the hardware environment is dramatically different from the machine you did the installation on.

Would I be right in thinking that you want the movable drive to boot the second computer but not the first one? I don't really see why you would want two XP booting drives on one machine? I doubt if you will ever get it to work due to the hardware environment sensitivity of XP.

You also have the problem that if you want to dual boot on the first machine, you should install Win98first and then install WinXP. Remember that Win98 cannot see NTFS formatted drives.

You said:

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I still think the best and easiest way is to find drivers to work with win98 and the GAVL board

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Have you looked on the intel site for non-operating system dependent drivers?

Otherwise, I would simply get another hard drive for the second machine and boot from that. Then just use the moveable drive for data.

cheers,

Johnno

You might want to look at some of the suggestions here

Hey guys, a few good ideas in there...

The point of having the movable drive, is that the user can have their environment exactly the same, desktop icons/wallpaper, program paths etc, except you can move it to a more powerful machine when wanted. Then move is back again for normal use. I know it might sound silly but its to do with a 14yo who loves downloading anything that pops up and looks good..... so you can see why i want him to have his own drive :p

I understand that XP is very sensitive to hardware changes, which is why i would prefer to use 98, plus xp would be sluggish on the p3. I will have a look now for the OS independant drivers... One thing more is that i DO have 98SE... sorry guys.

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You could try to install the driver for the networkcard of the P3 machine while running on the P4.
When asked to reboot, shutdown instead.. Move the drive over to the P3 and see what happens..

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Thanks, will try that too.

Cheers guys


CTO

Furthermore, i dont have a problem reformatting the hdd, but i need a way to reinstall so that it will run fine on both pc's, regardless of hardware profiles whatever...

I know in the end it might seem like too much dicking around, but it might be useful knowing i can start the process all over from scratch

Ok... latest update,

after contacting intel and asking for drivers for the GAV board and win 98... all they did is tell me there is no support for it and gave me a list of OS's that do support the board....

turns out theres no support for ME either (not that it was ever a choice for me :p) heh.... but my question now is does win2000 have the same hardware change faults as XP... ie, freezing etc after a hardware change?

Anyways, i think ive chased this avenue long enough.. so after that i'll give it a miss...

Thanks again guys

CTO

Hi,

Windows 2000 is, in fact, Win NT 5.0 ;) It does not have the hardware environment nonsense that XP does.

You can buy one copy and load it on as many boxes as you like (illegally of course). It behaves the same as Win9x/ME/NT 4.0 in that respect.

It will also work reasonably well on a PIII/128Mb, but I would be inclined to stick another 128 or 256 into that box.................memory is pretty cheap these days. It has a far lower resource demand that WinME or WinXP

It would probably make life a bit easier for the kid, as it looks and feels more like XP.

Obviously you can dual boot on the new machine.

Make sure you assemble your drivers. Do the installation of Win2000 on the new machine. When you take the drive to the PIII it will moan abit about new hardware and you will have to let it find or install the drivers for it.

The principle is just like loading Win9x on one box and taking it to another machine...........it will detect new hardware :)

But it should work just fine


Cheers

Cheers nihil,

that helps a fair bit :) i have a large amount of resources at my disposal so i should see no problem getting that sorted.. and as with the ram, i get it at cost price through the company i work with :D

cheers guys, been a great help


CTO