First, my questions:

1. Is there a way to do a surface scan and/or a low level format on a FAT32 partition within Linux (preferably within Knoppix)?

2. Is there something other than just copying the files over and setting hda1 active to make a Windows98 partition bootable?

3. Is there anything in Linux (preferably Knoppix) which can copy a FAT32 partition the way "Ghost" does it? In the past, I've used Ghost to copy Windows 98 partitions and it "just worked". But I no longer have access to a (legitimate) copy of Ghost.

Thanks!
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Here's my story so far:

I'm upgrading a Windows 98 computer from a 13gig drive to a 40gig drive, and installing Linux to boot. The new drive is partitioned:

hda1 36gig FAT32
hda5 .5gig swap
hda6 3gig ext3 (Linux)

I have no problem with the Linux side, and I modified GRUB to have a Windows entry. My problem is that I haven't been able to copy over the original Windows 98 setup successfully!

First, I tried using the Debian installer partition tool. I tried to copy over the 13gig drive over to hda1, and this seemed to go smoothly. I also set hda1 to be the "bootable" partition (set active).

However, when I actually installed Debian on hda6, the installer did NOT detect any other operating system and GRUB only had entries to boot up Linux. I wasn't too worried at that point--I manually edited /boot/menu.lst to create a Windows entry.

Unfortunately, this Windows chain boot didn't work quite right. It would actually flash the Windows 98 boot screen and then crap out. If I was fast with "F8", I could get to the boot menu and could boot to DOS prompt, but not safe mode. Going step-by-step, it would get through several steps but crash at some point. So, I tried to run scadisk from the DOS prompt and it ran into tons and tons of weird errors.

Okay, so at this point I figured that the disc copy went bad. Note that I have no issues whatsoever with the Linux side--it boots up just fine and I don't run into any disc errors so I THINK the actual drive is okay. There may be some bad sectors here and there, though. I don't know how to check for bad sectors.

So--I decide to boot up Knoppix and reformat the Fat32 partition with QTParted. No problem--although the "reformat" takes hardly any time so I know it's not actually touching most of the disc sectors. I couldn't find any option to do a low level format or do a sector scan of the disk. I did have the option to "set active" hda1.

I then decide to us a simple cp to copy over the files (cp -vr /mnt/hdb1/* /mnt/hda1/). This seems to go through just fine, with no complaints.

Now I try to reboot into Windows, but now the computer just sits there doing nothing after the GRUB chainload. No Windows98 splash screen, no boot menu, nothing. It just sits there doing nothing. Obviously I'm missing something. But what? I have no idea.

Thanks, I appreciate any help/ideas!

I found that unless the LBA flag (I think...) was set for the Win-doze partition, Windows' boot-loader just stared at me stupidly at boot-time and did nothing.

It turns out that what I was missing was DOS/Win9x "system files". In addition to what I did (format FAT32, make the partition active, copy files over, and configure GRUB), I needed to install the "system files". The way I did it was to use another Windows 98 computer to format a floppy disc as bootable. Then I manually copied C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SYS.COM to A:.

Then I booted up my non-booting PC with that floppy disc and ran the command:

SYS C:

After that, I was able to choose Windows 98 from GRUB like a charm!

dd will make an exact copy of a partition.

http://www.rajeevnet.com/hacks_hints...s_cloning.html
http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz

I see that you are from Baton Rouge, how are you doing coping with the flooding and damage? I've been watchin the disaster on tv.

Just joined today but think I have seen this post somewhere.

Yes, saikee--you helped me fix the problem on http://www.justlinux.com/

Glad it worked out OK.