Slave hard drive - transfer old programs to new

Hello all,
I have an IBM Aptiva 7360333, 4G, 64mb running win95 that I've finally replaced with a decent clone- AMD Athlon 900, 20G, 256mb running Win98. I want to give the IBM to my kids, but I need to remove a large portion of the programs from the old drive to the new. I know that if I slave the old drive to the new and transfer, I'll have to reinstall the programs under 98, which is a problem, because i lost several of my installation codes in a recent move. SO, if i upgrade the old drive running Win95 to Win 98, and THEN slave it, will the programs install on the new drive when i transfer, or will I still have to do a reinstall?
Thanks in advance for any advice!
Haleigh

 

It is not the best way, but if you use the hard drive mfg's utility to copy the old drive to the new one and then do the upgrade to Win98, the programs and data will be there in 98.

 

When you say you lost codes are you referring to the serial numbers?? If so you can download this utility and run it and it will give you the codes. It is called Belarc advisor you can get it at
www.belarc.com/ba5.html?B

 

John-thanks for posting that infomation. We get questions concerning lost serial numbers often. I have used Belarc Advisor previously, but missed the program S/N info. It will most lilely be of use to others again soom.

 

Thank you for your help so far. I did download and run the Belarc Advisor, but it didn't help with my problem. The codes I need are my passcodes that were generated for my software downloads for programs like Norton Antivirus, etc that I paid for online.
I know I've really messed up by losing them, but I'm trying to find a way out of it now.
Would a direct cable connection between the two computers be a better option? I don't need all of the programs on the old drive- just certain ones. Then I plan to get rid of most of what's left, as our kids will never need them.
TIA,
Haleigh

 

How you connect the computers doesn't have an effect on the ability to transfer programs from one computer to another. I've never heard of anyone successfully transferring software from one hard drive to another in any way. Maybe someone else can help you out, but I really doubt it. When software is installed, it makes changes to system files and to the registry. These changes cannot be duplicated by simply transferring files. I understand it's frustrating and disappointing, but let's see what we can do to help.

What version of Norton Anti-Virus do you have? If it's not the latest, now would be a good time to upgrade. Otherwise, I would suggest contacting Symantec to explain what happened. Maybe they can help you out. Other companies might be helpful too.

 

You can successfully transfer programs as you are wanting to do, but doing that will most likely be more of a pain then reinstalling everything and finding passcodes, ect. If the computers were identical, including OS and everything last thing, then you could just image the old on to the new computer and upgrade without a problem, but when you transfer specific programs, you can run into registry problems and such... and you still have to upgrade the 95 to 98 first. As I said, it is possible and I have done it before, but there are things you have to do along with it... the registry doesn't usually fix it self. First, do all you can do to find those codes and recover lost install discs, ect. A "fresh" install on anything is always the best to do. Do you have a quick restore cd for the 900 AMD? (I'm assuming you haven't done much on that one yet) If you really can't recover any of the codes, then your best bet is to reformat the new HD (since you can do a quick restore if needed, or back up what you have with a bruner), then image the old onto the new. When you boot you will need to install new drivers for anything that isn't the exact same, but then then you are usually good to go. If things don't work out right... you have the quick restore. That is just last resort. I suggest not even trying to just transfer specific programs and not the registry and OS they came from along with it. You first need to find those codes...

 

BTW... I meant to thank you John for that program and I forgot. I have needed it before and run into threads here where someone else could have benefited from it. Great link!

 

No problem just passing it along as someone once did to me.