windows wont load

[P man]

I have a hard drive that works fine as a slave but will not load as a master drive
I get a message saying "<windows root>\system32\" needs to be reinstalled as it is missing
How do I do this without an xp cd???

Also this is probably a stupid question but here goes...
If I format this hard drive and hook it up as a slave on a well working machine, can I make a copy of the good drive?? Windows and everything?

[chris_lacey]

Patrick, I can send you a small application that will do just that. Watch your email. I'm making supper right now, but I'll send it shortly.

[P man]

That would be great Chris.
It seems the more I learn about computers the more problems I have with them:confused:
Thanx

[chris_lacey]

Patrick, sorry, but my drive copy disc is corrupt. I'll check and see if i have another copy, but i don't think so.
Sorry again.
Symantic Ghost works as well, but it's around $69.

[10.5' Tunnel]

Have you tried http://www.download.com/ ? They have lots of cool free programs.

[chris_lacey]

The only problem with the free downloads is that most of them are not fully functional. I found that to be the case 100% of the time on the spyware trial version. They would find the problems but not fix them.
Worth a shot though.

[sho305]

The last time I did that was with a win98 machine. I used old DOS commands I think, to copy the entire drive when I upgraded to the third drive. Might have been the DOS in win98, not sure but I know I had the machine running command or DOS only and no windows. It took a while, and do a full defrag/disk check beforehand. Tried in windows and it was too slow or I couldn't do it. You have to get the boot sector to copy or change new one to a boot disk, is the important part.

Do some google on the net and I'm sure you can find instruction, that is all I do these days. Make sure if DOS commands you use the switches to copy all files and directories or it does not do some of them. Just keep the original disk good until it works without fully, as I remember a couple of tries before I got it right. Funny how they make it hard to do now, back in DOS days it was one or two simple commands to copy the entire disk and you just waited for it to get done. Of course older pre 98 DOS does not handle newer file structures. I'm sure there are programs or other ways to do it also.

You may want to investigate XP if you have that, as it may not be possible. XP is funny about letting you upgrade things, and may not let you change drive without the XP disk anyway.