moved files to diff HD, now doesn't work

[hobey19]

friend of mine moved all of the files from his c drive (including windows system files) over to his d drive. upon rebooting, the system no longer runs, and gives him a message saying:

"cannot find file system.ini. click any button to continue..."

hits ok, the system shuts down. he is running windows 95. is there anything he can do to get all of the files back to the c drive, or restore it (scanreg?) back. thanks

craig

[Cricket]

Originally posted by hobey19 friend of mine moved all of the files from his c drive (including windows system files) over to his d drive.

Gee, why did he do that?!

Are these two separate hard drives or two different partitions on the same drive?

Originally posted by hobey19 upon rebooting, the system no longer runs, and gives him a message saying: "cannot find file system.ini. click any button to continue..." hits ok, the system shuts down. he is running windows 95. is there anything he can do to get all of the files back to the c drive, or restore it (scanreg?) back. thanks

The partition that the OS is on must be the active partition. How to fix this? Depends on whether there are two hard drives or just one.

Cricket

[hobey19]

i am not too sure, he just walked up to me in school today, as to why he did it, not sure either. i would guess that it is two physical drives

craig

[galaxian]

You can't just "move" system or program files since all of the system information and registry info still points to where it was.

You need to reinstall Windows, if you want to move it, and reinstall every program that you want to move. (and uninstall them first)

[GaryRouth]

. . . sounds like he had the two drives in the system for a while before he decided to move things? If these are two physical drives (and not partitions), and the D drive was previously only used for storing odds and ends (like image files and music - and didn't have any programs installed to it), have him try just removing the C drive from the system, and cabling the D drive in it's place. Windows will reassign the drive letter C to the new drive, and might be able to find the system files it needs to run. If there's anything like "drive overlay" software, or hidden proprietary partitions, going on - that would complicate things.

Reinstalling Windows, like galaxian mentions, will work, too.

By the way: if he used a "Disk Copy" utility from a hard drive manufacturer to move things in the first place, he could use that same utility to move things back. [these usually run from DOS from either a bootable floppy or CD]

If he was having a system problem that prompted him to move the files in the first place, see if he wants help with that . . .
. . . Gary

[hobey19]

since i don't know too many of the details, there isn't a whole lot for me to say. i gave him this link and hopefully he checks it out tonight. i don't know excatly what he did or why. i do remember this, however. he threw out all of the cd's because the computer was so old, and so in effect, no longer has win95. reinstalling isn't much of an option. i was thinking of just copying everything back in dos. thanks for the advice, guys

craig

[vizun]

um... wow interesting thing to do... build a new computer?

[galaxian]

Well, copying everything back via DOS isn't an option either UNLESS you only plan to run DOS from then on.

(all long file names will be lost)

[GaryRouth]

[galaxian - the disk copy utilities usually make an exact copy regardless of OS, so long filenames are preserved. . . I wasn't referring to any of the DOS copy commands, which yes indeed would break the long filenames pretty completely. Sorry if I wasn't clear. The disk utilities that can do non-destructive copying like this are those that come with the hard drives (like DataLifeGuard, Powermax, SeaTools - etc]

hobey - these tools are usually a free download = but your friend will already have the tool if that's what he used to copy in the 1st place. . . And perhaps his best chance is the cable & drive switcheroo, with the C drive removed.

I'd be interested to see if your friend has success recovering his system, it's an intriguing spot to be in.
. . . Gary

p.s. - sorry galaxian, I read too quickly: I didn't notice hobey mentioned copying straight in DOS. I'd thought you were referring to the disk copy tools. I need to pay better attention when I'm reading! Sorry bout that.