Ghost 2K3 with Windows 98

Ok, ok, I know that nobody uses Windows 98 PCs anymore, unless you work for a not-for-profit like I do.

Anyhoo, in the past, I had no problems with Symantec Ghost with a LaCie external hard drive to duplicate Windows XP PCs. Assumed (yeah, I'm former Air Force and do know what assume stands for) that the same boot disk would work for a Windows 98. Proverbial big mistake.

I had two issues. First, the Win XP boot disk wouldn't recognize the LaCie hard drive. Then, once I got it to see the external drive, Ghost would not restore the image. Said the source partition was too large. So after much sturm und drang, here's the drill for both. I put the XP drill first as that's the first OS I used Ghost on.

Windows XP Boot Disk:

Using a Win XP PC, format the floppy to FAT as a MS-DOS startup disk, Quick Format unchecked. Then delete everything but the command.com, io.sys, and the msdos.sys from the floppy. On my network drive, I have a folder with the following in it:

Ghost folder containing; Ghost.exe, Ghost.ini, Ghosterr.txt.

USB folder containing: aspiehci.sys

Root containing: Autoexec.bat, config.sys, guest.exe, ibmbio.com, ibmdos.com, mouse.com, mouse.ini.

Autoexec.bat contains:
@echo off
SET TZ=GHO+05:00
GUEST.EXE
MOUSE.COM
echo Loading...
CD GHOST
GHOST.EXE

Config.sys contains:
DEVICE = usb\aspiehci.sys /int /all
LASTDRIVE = Z

Copy the entire contents of the drive to the XP floppy, protect it, and you're good to go.

If you don't have the aspiehci.sys, you can find it on Symantec's web site or Google for it. It's actually from Iomega, as is the Guest.exe file.

When you do an Ghost an image to or from with the Win XP boot disk, do a disk selection, not partition. Then choose the first partition as usual.

Windows 98 Boot Disk:

I still used a Win XP boot disk as described above. On the network Win 98 folder, the Ghost folder is the same, but the USB and root files are different.

USB folder containing: DI1000DD.SYS and USBASPI.SYS.

Root containing: Autoexec.bat, config.sys, guest.exe, ibmbio.com, ibmdos.com, mouse.com, mouse.ini.

Config.sys contains:
Device=usb\usbaspi.sys /v
Device=usb\di1000dd.sys
LASTDRIVE = Z

As with XP, copy the entire contents of the drive to the 98 floppy and protect it.

Many thx to swhartung aka NightOwl, Ghost Guru at Radified Files Forum. I got the usbaspi.sys and di1000dd.sys files from Radified Files download page. Per NightOwl's suggestion, I used the usbaspi.sys from the kxlrw40an.exe file and the di1000dd.sys from the mhairudo.zip file.

With the Win 98 boot disk, it's reverse, do a partition selection, not disk.

Long Live DOS!!!