[DrBoar]

I have this plan to use Win2000 on old Pentium 3 boxes for folding. Before I can swipe the HDs I prefer to make a complete copy of the disk as the old users tend to scatter documents way outside the document folder.

I put in a win 98 HD in a USB cabinet and copied its content to an other bigger HD using a OS X computer. Now when I reinstall the disk (set as Master in USB cabinet and CS in computer) it refuses to boot as the computer does not find the HD...

Have I messed something up by reading the disk in OS X?
If I try that HD in the USB cabinet connected to a XP box I do find some files ".Trash" , "._.Trash" and ".DS_store" can these files originate from OS X and also interfere with booting?

I need to crank up my folding!

[reader50]

Those files are indeed left by the Finder. But OSX will not tamper with the partition table just to mount a disk. Nothing OSX does will interfere with mounting. .DS_Store files contain finder info for the folder the .DS_Store file is in. Namely the window's location and size on the desktop the last time that window was opened. Also the other view prefs for that window - ie, icon sorting arrangement, etc.

.Trash is were files are moved to on that volume when something is moved to the Trash. ._.Trash would be the resource fork for the Trash, also filesystem metadata for the Trash that doesn't have any other place on a FAT32 volume.

It's more likely that the old Pentium III does not support booting from USB.

[DrBoar]

I put it back in the Win98 as a IDE drive in its original place and with the jumpers back to cable select as they were. I still suspect OS X doing something as I now have copied the content of a second Win 98 HD from one USB cabinet to an other thrugh a XP box. I then put Win98 HD back into its computer and it booted fine. Now I will try installing Win 2000 in the first Win98 box to get it back to folding