Read/Write to NTFS from a bootable floppy

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I have a problem I need some help with. My company has Win2k pro installed on
over 200 remote systems. These systems only have hard drives and floppy
drives, no CD ROM. When a hard drive fails, we need a way to transfer a
database folder from the non-working drive to a newly imaged drive. With our
old systems (WinNT 4) we used to just plug in the new hard drive and set the
old one as a slave and copy the folder using Windows Explorer. The problem we
have encountered with Windows 2000 is that when you plug in the new drive and
it boots up, it detects the Windows 2000 installation on the original drive
and that causes some environment variables to be overwritten. We found that
after the data transfer is complete and we remove the original drive, Windows
will not boot because it is looking for files on the original drive.

I need to know if there is a way to read and write to NTFS partitions from
DOS. Or if there is some other way to do this that will not render the new
drive unbootable.
Does MS have some sort of support for this?

Thank you,
Jon P.
 
I have a problem I need some help with. My company has Win2k pro installed on
over 200 remote systems. These systems only have hard drives and floppy
drives, no CD ROM. When a hard drive fails, we need a way to transfer a
database folder from the non-working drive to a newly imaged drive. With our
old systems (WinNT 4) we used to just plug in the new hard drive and set the
old one as a slave and copy the folder using Windows Explorer. The problem we
have encountered with Windows 2000 is that when you plug in the new drive and
it boots up, it detects the Windows 2000 installation on the original drive
and that causes some environment variables to be overwritten. We found that
after the data transfer is complete and we remove the original drive, Windows
will not boot because it is looking for files on the original drive.

I need to know if there is a way to read and write to NTFS partitions from
DOS. Or if there is some other way to do this that will not render the new
drive unbootable.
Does MS have some sort of support for this?

Thank you,
Jon P.
Click to expand...


Booting with your dead drive asa slave shouldn't be a prolem. I
suspect it's that boot-order settings in your CMOS. I always use the
second IDE channel for reading a failed disk. This is much faster as
I don't have to pull the C drive out and mess with the master slave
jumpers, them put them back again.

I know you didn't ask, but depending on reading a failed disk doesn't
seem like a great backup strategy to me.
 
Thanks for the reply, I do realize that our method is not very sound but the
company's focus is on downtime. We can always re-create a system's database
and send it via our remote management system but that process takes up 1 day
to create and another to send the database. Obviously, if the faulty drive
can not be accessed, it is our only option. The other factor in this is that
there is no real IT support onsite for regular backups.

I will try the method you suggested but would like to know if there is any
utility out there that could be used. I downloaded NTFS4DOS and it allows me
to read/write from NTFS volumes but I can not use xcopy to get the data
transfered. Any information about getting a boot floppy to work would help
greatly.

Thanks,

Jon P.
 
Thanks for the reply, I do realize that our method is not very sound but the
company's focus is on downtime. We can always re-create a system's database
and send it via our remote management system but that process takes up 1 day
to create and another to send the database. Obviously, if the faulty drive
can not be accessed, it is our only option. The other factor in this is that
there is no real IT support onsite for regular backups.

I will try the method you suggested but would like to know if there is any
utility out there that could be used. I downloaded NTFS4DOS and it allows me
to read/write from NTFS volumes but I can not use xcopy to get the data
transfered. Any information about getting a boot floppy to work would help
greatly.

Thanks,
Click to expand...


I'm not sure you've thought this thru. If you boot a floppy, what are
you going to do as the second step if there's no hands-on technician ?

I use Knoppix/Linux for this, but you don't have a CD drive. Other people
can suggest floppy-based NTFS tools. I don't use them.

IMO, if a computer crashes because of disk problems the contents of
the disk are either completely unaccessable or dogmeat. Reading data
from failed disk is considered an heroic effort and not a sure
thing. I can't see building a contingency plan on it. Recovering
family pics is one thing, a business database is someting entirely
different.

I'd say you're a candidate for cheap RAID 1 (mirroring) and then, in
the rare case of total failure you have to send out a new database,
but you have to send a technician with parts, anyway.
 
I have a problem I need some help with. My company has Win2k pro installed on
over 200 remote systems. These systems only have hard drives and floppy
drives, no CD ROM. When a hard drive fails, we need a way to transfer a
database folder from the non-working drive to a newly imaged drive. With our
old systems (WinNT 4) we used to just plug in the new hard drive and set the
old one as a slave and copy the folder using Windows Explorer. The problem we
have encountered with Windows 2000 is that when you plug in the new drive and
it boots up, it detects the Windows 2000 installation on the original drive
and that causes some environment variables to be overwritten. We found that
after the data transfer is complete and we remove the original drive, Windows
will not boot because it is looking for files on the original drive.

I need to know if there is a way to read and write to NTFS partitions from
DOS. Or if there is some other way to do this that will not render the new
drive unbootable.
Does MS have some sort of support for this?

Thank you,
Jon P.
Click to expand...

Sounds like only a minor variation in your technique is needed.
Install the newly imaged drive.

Disconnect the non-working drive.
Boot up the machine to make sure it works and the "variables" are
correctly determined.

Power down and attach the non-working drive.
Boot up and use explorer to copy the database folder.
Power down, detach the non-working drive, close up the case, etc.
Boot up. Since you've already booted once without the old drive attached
W2K should boot fine, I think.
 
I didn't want to go into too much detail, but I think I must put this in
it's proper context so that I don't appear insane for posing the questions I
did...

My company owns and operates over 200 hotel giftshops in hotels all over the
U.S.
We are in the final 2 weeks of a new equipment rollout, we are replacing our
stores' old POS (point of sale) Registers which ran WinNT 4 with new hardware
that runs Win2k pro. These POS systems are pretty much desktop PCs with all
the added peripherals that make them registers (barcode scanners, cash
drawers and so on..).

Each store keeps a unique database that contains everything from inventory
to payroll for that store. Our remote management system connects to each
store every night and downloads change data (sales for the day, inventory
update, personel changes). I said that we did not have IT staff onsite for
regular data backups, we do have a service contract with the company we
leased the new equipment from. They send Techs on site for any repair or
install as needed.

About the method we would like to use for data transfers: This method is
possibly the most unreliable way to attempt any sort of data recovery.
However, this was not my call. The CIO wants to have the fastest option
available for cases like this and I was given the task to make it work. I
completely agree that this is not the best way to do it. If it were up to me,
every store would have a 10gb USB hard drive with an automated backup
solution installed ( I actually tested this setup during our testing phase
with the new equipment and it worked). But a backup strategy was not included
in our budget for this year so that was out of the question. Right now, I
just needed to see what solutions there were that could work from a floppy.
The process would be something like this :
1. Plug new drive into the system
2. boot from a floppy that can read/write to NTFS volumes
3. copy data from old drive to new drive
4: remove old drive
This would obviously be done by an onsite Tech and while not the best
solution, if it were possible it would definately be the fastest.
At this point, I was told that if we could not use a boot floppy, we would
be building new databases for stores that need it and send them to the store
once the hard drive was replaced. This is not my favorite solution because it
increases the amount of work for my staff and there is always a chance that
we might lose store data if the store did not connect the night before.

Thanks for the replies and ideas. I still have to try the one you gave me
but I need to wait for another department to finish testing some software
updates on my test systems before I can try it.
 
What about NTFSDOS from Sysinternals/Winternals?

- Greg/Raxco Software
Microsoft MVP - Windows File System

Want to email me? Delete ntloader.
 
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