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Ask Slashdot: Old PC File Transfer Problem
An anonymous reader writes I have an old Compaq Contura Aero laptop from the nineties (20 Mhz, 12 Mb RAM, Windows 3.11, 16-bit, PCMCIA, COM, LPT, floppy) with 160 Mb drive that I would want to copy in full to a newer machine. The floppies are so unreliable — between Aero's PCMCIA floppy drive and USB floppy disk drive — that it is a total nightmare to try and do it; it just doesn't work. If that option is excluded, what else can I do? I have another old laptop with Windows XP (32-bit, PCMCIA, COM, LPT) that could be used; all other machines are too new and lack ports. Will be grateful for any ideas.
There used to be a program called Laplink that would transfer between machines over a cable. You could get special parallel "Laplink cables," but perhaps a null-modem serial cable would also work. (Light googling suggests you can use a 7-wire, null-modem serial cable.)
I see there is a laplink.com web site.
Wikipedia says, in MS-DOS 6.0 (and PC DOS 5.02) there was something like it included: INTERSVR and INTERLNK. But it looks harder to use.
Get a ide controller and whatever adapter you may need and just plug the hd into your current workstation. Perhaps one of those usb -> ide deals would also be a easy answer. Why make it more complex then that?
If the new computer has a USB port, they make devices that connect to many different old drive connectors and turn the drive into an external USB drive.
Com port, 2->3,3->2,5->5 and use Zmodem
You could get a cheap IDE/SATA to USB adapter and pull out the drive. The adapter would still be of use since it also has an SATA port. Who knows, you may run into another occasion where the IDE is needed as well.
pull the hard drive and get a USB adapter for it
Pull the hard disk and USB connect it to the target machine ...
The USB thingies are like dirt cheap ...
leather-dog muksihs
Blog: @muksihs
http://www.frys.com/product/8129805
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=USI-2535SIU3
Plug the USB cable into your new or modern computer and away you go.
with 160 Mb drive that I would want to copy in full to a newer machine.
Pull the hard drive, and attach it to the new computer via a USB kit.
Something like:
http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-C...
I'm not endorsing that kit in particular. I've had mixed experience with the quality of these kits... you get what you pay for. But it'll get the job done.
There are USB to 44 pin ide adapters. I am guessing by the description it uses a 44pin ide drive. There are also ways to do that through esata and whatnot but I find USB works better for old drives as sometimes they timeout with retries and USB->IDE bridges are more forgiving for that.
If the laptop HDD isn't soldered in, and if you've got an IDE controller on your desktop, motherboard haul the drive out of the old laptop and plug it in to the desktop with a ribbon cable. Copy away!
The first option would be a PCMCIA ethernet card. Since you have 3.11, if you install a PCMCIA nic that has windows 3.11 drivers, you can simply use windows file sharing to copy everything. There's plenty of old nics on ebay.
Second option is to use pkzip to zip up everything you want. Buy a null modem cable and transfer the zip files using x/y/zmodem. Windows 3.11 had a terminal program and the windows XP laptop will have hyper-terminal.
The second option is much slower, but null modems are easier to find than pcmcia network cards with windows 3.11 drivers.
Windows 3.11 machines were capable of SMB file sharing over a network. You should be able to use an old PCMCIA ethernet card and install the Microsoft TCP stack (it wasn't installed by default), then see other computers over a workgroup.
If that sounds too hard then serial transfer over null modem should be the easiest and I'm sure I did it many times myself back in the day. I cant remember what software I used to use, googling for Windows 3.11 serial file transfer shows lots of hits though.
Assuming its an old style 44pin micro ide or whatever its called.
There are many IDE to USB doohickeys available that support SATA, 40pin and 44pin.
You could just get yourself one of these adaptors from Amazon then copy the files directly from one HD to another...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Simple way:
1. Open up old laptop. Run defrag program. Set it to show the entire blockmap for the old hard drive.
2. Turn on new laptop's webcam, set it to stream output to a text file. Focus webcam on the blockmap from the defrag program on old computer.
The webcam will read the contents of each block on the old laptop's HD and write it to the text file on the new laptop. Easy peasy.
Parallel line internet protocol. Get ahold of a floppy drive for your main PC and put a micro linux distro on it, including the module for the plip protocol. Then boot off the floppy. It'll take like 3 or 4 disks to hold the full kernel, but once you're there, you can rsync your drive to something else with a parallel port or a parallel port dongle.
That laptop still has pretty decent specs. Instead of trying to get rid of it, you should install NetBSD and turn it into a webserver.
Ditto the PCMCIA Ethernet. The trick may be finding drivers for such a card, but there are tons of cheap old PC cards on eBay.
Did a quick Google, and found this:
http://remember.the-aero.org/a...
2.5 inch to 3.5 inch ide adapter, plug into computer copy
Zip everything. Null modem serial cable, CKermit on both ends. Done.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
The easiest thing to do here is getting a usb to ide adapter, connect the old hdd, start to copy and then go get some nice cup of tea. The hdd will be slow as funk so it might take a an hour or two, but it's not big deal, just dont be cheap and get the bloody adapter from a chinese no-name on ebay. Just in case, to be on the safe side, make sure the hdd is EXTERNALLY fed. If there is not enough juice from our shiny new laptop's usb port for this, it will burn your port. Just that, its not more complicated than that, good luck :)
http://www.amazon.com/USB-SATA...
and with a brand name like generic it must be good.
lose != loose
Null Modem serial cable and download a copy of Kermit. I recently had to do this to transfer software from Windows 7 to a PLC network card that for some reason was a 286 embedded PC running DOS. Worked fairly well.
Kermit For Windows
Kermit for DOS
Slow Down Cowboy! It's been 1 hour, 47 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment
PCMCIA CF card reader, plus fat formatted CF card, plus USB CF card reader.
Or about a thousand other ways.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
By using the LPT port and a special (but not too rare or expensive) cable, you can transfer at about 50Kb/s If you can at least copy/software from a diskette, you could try with Total Commander, which has a Win 3.1 version (1.5Mb), and which include that functionality, very easy to use.
The Laplink idea was copied by Microsoft. If it has one of the more recent versions of XP, you can use a serial link.
You did not say how recent the destination machine is. If it has a serial port and XP or 98, you can just use a null modem cable. If it's a newer machine, you will have to use a null modem cable AND a serial-to-usb cable or adapter on the newer end. Further, if you are on Windows 7 or later, you will have to install Virtual PC and then XP mode (both free from Microsoft), so you can run a virtual XP window.
Then start up serial networking and transfer your data. One machine is 'host' and the other is 'client'.
Yep.. once again, IDE-to-USB adapter: https://www.google.ca/?#q=ide+... Just check the images on Google to see if there is a connector that matches the connector on the back of the hard drive. I remember that in some older laptops they have used the plug-in converters which may look like a part of the disk, but you can actually pull them off to get to the actual IDE connector. BTW: Order the universal(IDE/SATA)-to-USB converter so you can use it for other purposes in the future. Good luck!
Easy way? What borcharc said. Just get an adapter like this one (http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/151451123963?lpid=82&chn=ps), pop the drive out, and you'll be good. If you'd like to have some fun, there's a few ways to do that too. I used to have to drag files off of my old ThinkPad 760c all the time. I had the 760 running Windows 95, though, which made things a little easier... For you, you can use INTERLNK with DOSBox on the XP machine (parallel or serial passthroughs for DOSBox can be set up with these DOSBox files- http://home.arcor.de/h-a-l-900.... You can find INTERLNK for use with DOSBox or your 3.1 machine if it's missing here- http://www.kime.net/directcc/d...)
There's another way I found, using RAS, that I never used because I found it to be a bit complicated. If you'd like to play around with network shares in Windows 3.1, you're in for a treat! This page can show you how. http://www.kime.net/directcc/d...
For any of this to work, you'll need either a serial or parallel cable. You'll also need a modicum of patience, which is something I do not possess. That's why my 760 is currently functioning as a stand for the monitor attached to my Y580. Happy trails!
I think the biggest issue you'll run into is finding something that will work for the DOS/Win 3.11 device.
See if you can rustle up a copy of Laplink with the LPT cables. It was designed for moving files in just this scenario; using the LPT cable was always a lot faster than serial, which topped out at 115kbps. Yes, that's kilobits per second, you young whippersnappers.
If you can't find laplink, find (or build) yourself a null modem cable. Hook it between the two systems' COM ports, and fire up a basic transfer program that supports batch transfers (look for ZMODEM support).
I had to do this recently for a really old computer, and the easiest and fastest method was to buy an IDE to USB adapter, pull the drive, connect it to the adapter, plug the USB side into a modern machine, and copy the files over.
A family member had been putting every photo he or anyone else in his immediate family had ever taken, onto this really ancient computer that was old when he bought his first digital camera. Kids, grandkids, vacations, irreplaceable stuff. He brought the computer to me when it failed, asking if I could pull the photos. I thought his data was gone, but interestingly, in this case it wasn't the hard drive that had failed, but something else in the machine. (I didn't care what...) I pulled the drive, connected it to my machine, pulled the photos, burned them to several DVDs, marked the old drive with a sharpie, and put it on my backup shelf "just in case". Recycled the computer. About two hours work end to end, including trying to figure out how to remove the drive with no documentation for the machine.
So, I wouldn't even bother trying to figure out some kind of historic file transfer protocol or how to handle ancient removable media. Assuming the drive interface doesn't predate IDE (also known as ATA or PATA), reading it directly is the way to go.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Great idea! I'm sure he'll have no problem finding drivers for that solution! Bravo!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Ooh, it finally just came to me -- XIRCOM Parallel-to-Ethernet adapter. Forgot about those puppies... they were badass back in the day.
Maybe for some reason you want to constrain yourself to contemporaneous tech. D-Link made parallel port Ethernet adapters meant for use with laptops. I have a DE-620 that I've successfully used with Windows 3.11 on my Compaq LTE 386.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
But like 80% of ask slashdots recently are questions that can be answered through only trivial amounts of Googling. What the hell is going on?
MS-DOS 6.0 and up have a built-in laplink program called INTERLINK (INTERLNK.EXE). This will require a parallel port on the destination computer.
You can look for some PCMCIA cards that might help. I have seen a PCMCIA SCSI card that could be connected to a JAZ drive (1GB ZIP DISK), but finding that hardware could be difficult.
Does your old laptop have an IRDA port? Almost nobody uses those anymore, but it might still be there....
The serial link has already been proposed - and that'd be my first choice (three wires, coil the ends of each one around a small nail, insulate with tape and carefully slide over the appropriate pins of the serial ports for cheap, one-time serial cable).
My second choice would be to simply image the drive - from there you have two variations:-
I've had to do the same with several dozen boxes so I can keep supporting a chain of petrol stations that still use OS/2 and W3.1 to run all their inventory, training, wages, email, and accounting systems on old enterprise hardware. My first reaction was WTF, my second reaction was - holy crap, these guys made a smart decision years ago that still continues to work while saving them many thousands per install in hardware, software, training, and down-time. The customers only see the late POS and the cheap fuel prices. They've had various SOEs ready to roll-out as replacements since the early 90s - but so far they've proven correct in retaining what works.
Can you just run a FTP server on the new machine and FTP up the whole thing? http://www.k7tty.com/Utilities...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If you ask this question, you presumably have no following specific equipment needed for such operations: 44 to 40 pin HDD adapter, PCMCIA to Compact Flash adapter and PCMCIA network card. It's quite strange that you own the book for 20 years and have no such equipment (I live in Russia and I have all three. I prefer a PCMCIA to CF adapter and a 32-GB CF card since it gives me 32 GB of additional removable storage. There are LOTS of them on E-Bay and since all they are passive there is no place for problems. Then you can use any CF reader to move your data anywhere). So the least common denominator is either LPT or COM. Warning! You may want to boot from PCMCIA CF since it's sometimes possible that Windows does not recognize more than 1 GB of CF. So you may want to make it bootable.
If you have a computer with both USB and LPT then make a Laplink LPT cable (2 DB-25M connectors and 11 wires), boot DOS from USB stick and use Laplink or Norton Commander Link to copy files to USB stick.
If you have a computer with both USB and COM (even the newest ones usually have one hidden on m/b) then make a null modem cable and copy files with the same Norton Commander Link via COM. It's a loooooooooong procedure but it at least works.
If you have no other computer with both USB and COM then the situation is more complicated. You will need to install somewhere any terminal host having a Z-modem capability, for instance, some Linux and rsz package (Have no idea about such host in Windows). Then use a USB to COM adapter and null-modem cable. Login to the host and use your preferred terminal program to do the work.
heh, back in 2000 I had an old greyscale Compaq laptop like that without a floppy drive or CDROM or USB. I managed to get Debian bootstrapped on it through the serial port!
Used a DOS zmodem program to transfer a minimal linux rescue image to it and launched it with loadlin.exe . Then used that to re partition and resize the 120MB hdd with a 80MB partition for Debian. Then some how managed to loadlin the Debian installer image and convince it to install a few packages at a time from the little DOS partition. Once that was working nicely, I got lilo installed to the MBR, and finally got rid of DOS/Win3.11 .
I think I eventually got the PCMCIA NIC and X working as well, but it was only really decent at running emacs from the console. I wrote a few reports on it and graphed stuff in octave and ran stuff through latex to produce ps2pdfs to print on campus. It was actually fairly effective at preventing me from wasting too much time playing Quake :P
I'd make sure to use zip; as I recall unzip has an automatic check on the format of the input. So if you copy W to X and X to Y it might come out wreong, but if you zip W to X.zip and try to unzip X.zip onto anything, it will warn you if there was some loss of bits in the intermediate medium X.
A fall-back solution: e-mail the (zip) files to yourself. Of coures this assumes an internet connection on the old machine, but even an old dial-up modem can be used. This is how I get pictures off from my (new) Android phone. If you've got an RS-232 socket on the old machine you can hook both machines to a LAN router and transfer the files faster. Again, though, in call cases, use zip to provide confirmation of contants.
Neither book1 nor book2 are declared to have an USB or network. So transfer to the second book does not solve a problem.
http://www.jave.de/aero/44to40...
http://www.zenspider.com/~pwil...
http://repair4laptop.org/disas...
Did you try superuser.com and the like? Or is slashdot becoming a stackexchange clone?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
5 seconds on Google verified this machine has no USB... tho it's age should make that obvious.
It uses a standard 2.5" notebook hard drive, with the standard 40 pin IDE interface.
If you don't want to pull the drive... Laplink cable is easiest.
Pulling the drive is still a good, easy option, attach to a cheap usb interface.
You also mentioned 16bit pcmcia... if we have a pc card NIC, access to Internet? The ftp xfer option is there too.
-Darkelf
Sure if you have a week, to copy 160MB in 1.44MB chunks swapping floppies around 100+ times.
I used to keep a PCMCIA network adapter lying around for this kind of thing in my nerd toolkit but it's 2015, this is some seriously old gear you're working with here.
I also no longer have laplink cables, either serial or parallel so I'm afraid the "pull the disk" suggestion is the best option.
You could use a USB to IDE adapter (if your board doesn't have IDE)
https://www.google.com.au/sear...
Many of those come with 44pin laptop plugs regardless.
If you're going to use your motherboard, you're going to want one of these suckers.
https://www.google.com.au/sear...
Luckily IDE has been around a hell of a long time and it's extremely unlikely it's older than IDE.
This is probably going to be the easiest solution for you, serial / parallel could be quite fun and interesting but who has goddamn time for it? Just pull the disk.
If for some reason you don't or can't remove the HDD, there are a variety of floppy adapters - as in, things that actually *plug in* to the floppy disk slot itself. Something like this: http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-... Is relatively inexpensive. It only lists compatibility there back to Windows 95, but the website ( http://www.olympusamerica.com/... ) has software for Windows 3.1. The main difference seems to be that you can only use memory cards up to 32 megabytes. Don't just buy that link I posted without researching, though; you may have to buy an older model for proper 3.1 compatibility. I can't find any evidence of this but I'm also CERTAIN that there are crazy specialty devices that are basically floppy disks with cables coming out of the back of them that you can plug into a floppy drive and use them as an adapter to some other kind of interface. I really wish someone else could help back me up on that, because I really think it exists but I can't find anything, anywhere!
PCMCIA:
Get yourself a PCMCIA Compact flash adapter. You can copy your data to the compact flash drive. (requires drivers, so this may fail for you)
You can also get a PCMCIA network card. Probably only 10mbit, but still more than enough. You have Windows 3.11, which was Windows For Workgroups. If TCP/IP wasn't installed on that version, you can download and install WinSock, an early TCP/IP socket stack for Windows. (requires drivers, so this may fail for you)
Serial:
You can do link between two computers and transfer over serial... but this requires the right software and the right drivers, so this may be out of the question for you.
Emergency Boot Floppy:
Use an emergency boot floppy and boot linux off of the network with a pcmcia network card. You can then mount the filesystem Read-only and copy over the network. (requires linux server, linux skills or someone who can do this for you)
Extract the hard drive directly: (best option)
Yank the hard drive. See what kind it is. Get the appropriate laptop drive adapter cable and relevant USB adapter. Plug that into a newer computer and transfer off the files.
Of the options, the hard disk pull and copy option is really the best way to go, bar none. The only thing you would need to buy would be the right USB-to-laptop hard drive adapter. You can find them on amazon/ebay/etc. If you live near Sunnyvale, California, you can even stop by Weird Stuff and they might have it for a song.
Winged Power Photography
I used Iomega Zip drives back in the 90s to transfer large files between computers and backup data before I had a network. They made a parallel port drive, internal PATA, SCSI and USB version I think.
If I remember correctly, the drivers were for DOS and had to be loaded before 3.1 was launched. It would be fun to try it again.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Method 1:
Buy, borrow, or steal a 2.5 inch IDE hard drive enclosure with USB ports. Remove the hard drive from your old laptop. Plug it into the enclosure. Connect the USB cable to you current computer. It should mount the external drive with no fuss. Copy the contents of the external drive to an internal drive or to the cloud.
Method 2.
In a strip mall somewhere near you is a small shop with a sign in the window that says something like PC repairs or laptop repairs. Take the old machine to the shop. For a small quantity of money the shop will put your data on a CR-Rom or a cloud portal.
This method does not require screwdrivers or touching machinery.
Given that you did not think of method 1 in a few seconds, you probably ought to use method 2. It is far more bullet proof.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
Did it all the time; going from memory...
I go for the dead simple, zip up all the files from the source
Run a phone wire between the computerers, with the terminal call one from one (IIRC you have to disable dialtone check use ATX3 then ATD555)
and on the other manual answer (ATA)
you migh have to do half duplex (local echo) on the terminals IIR this was the quickest route for no fuss local communication
once connected use the upload/download options on the terminals to start the file trnasfer
then look on it in a few hours, it will just churn away till it's finished.
It may be slow but it will complete as expected, and there is no special hardware, program or data cost.
look at the bottom of this article on my machine to machine notes -
http://www.portcommodore.com/d...
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
You can buy CF card and CF card PCMCIA adapter for under $20.
Found this procedure: http://www.kime.net/directcc/d...
You could link the oldest one to the less old through their COM ports.
It may require access to Win 3.11 install disks tho.
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Okay, so it's not just me then. Does anyone know WTH Slashdot is trying to do now?
USB to IDE to get to the drive, or boot off an old linux root/boot floppy like Toms rootboot disk, and ftp, or whatever the files over to something else via the ethernet connection you didn't mention (maybe because it doesn't have one), or parallel you did mention (laplink). I'm sure many others have mentioned laplink for MSDOS.
Remember you don't have to be in the native OS or even the native hardware when all you really want is the files on the disk.
Another alternative, if there is an ethernet connection, is to go full knoppix - it isn't all that hard to run knoppix on one machine as a PXE server to boot up knoppix on a machine with no cdrom.
Just order one of these and hook the drive up to USB on the newer machine.
yeah by far the easiest is just take the harddisk and put it in a ide usb dongle(10$-30$ bucks).
second easiest is to get INTERNET on the machine. it's not that hard or impossible, then just ftp the files over. you need to find a isa network card though. ebay should have plenty of them. also this is the best way if you intend to play some old games or what have you with it.
third easiest, to get a null modem is also doable, the newer machine can use a usb serial dongle. if you don't find a null modem cable it's easy enough to make one from a serial cable. then use some program to transfer the files over that. it's just 20 megs so speed isn't a real problem.
then there's possibilities of using some crap like ooold zipdrives etc. possibly a cdr drive as well but eh good luck with burning on that machine..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Put a 64MB CF card in a CF to pcmcia adapter and Windows should see it has a hard disk.
Then stick that in a modern card reader and you should be home free
this is FUD put out by an AC. Best ignored as he won't even put his name to it!
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Yes, you'll have to look up your old friend Kermit (or Xmodem/Ymodem/Zmodem, or maybe even UUCP), and it'll have to run for a few days unless you can get it to sync up at higher speeds like 115200, but it's not information you really need much faster than that.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yes, folks, not all PCMCIA is the same. The newer ones support Cardbus cards; the older ones don't, and this machine is absolutely an older one. I've got a Pentium-75 laptop that only takes the original-flavored cards.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Fastlynx:
https://sewelldirect.com/fastL...
Get a serial null modem cable. You can use a USB-serial converter on a modern PC if you want. USB-LPT converters will not work. They are only for printers. 2 way data transfer won't work at all. Sewell sells packages with Serial and LPT null modem cables with the software.
It can run anything from DOS to Windows 8 64 bit. There's a built in function to send the server program to a DOS machine over serial (using DOS MODE and CTTY commands), without using floppy or CD.
Run the server on the DOS machine, connect on a modern Windows machine, and you can copy the whole HDD over.
Sewell even has Windows versions of Interlnk. You can mount a 2GB FAT16 disk image on your modern PC, and have it show up as a drive on your antique machine.
Use old ms-dos era program called laplink, or other such programs. Limit to say 19200 or at best 38400, taking roughly 22-12 hours for worst-case file by file copy. dosbox on newer machine could be used.
-Use LPT port on machine, connect to cross over LPT cable on USB->LPT adapter, use laplink or other such program. dosbox or other on newmachine should do, use again laplink or other such software. May not be 100% compatible with all USB->LPT adapters.
I've yet to see a USB-LPT adapter that can be used for ANYTHING other than a printer. 2 way data over LPT plays some serious tricks, so this is a non-starter.
Instead of Laplink I use FastLynx:
https://sewelldirect.com/fastL...
It is compatible from DOS to Windows 8 64 bit (with USB-serial, or hardware LPT port)
Use a null modem cable to connect the COM ports between the old PC and a new PC. On the new PC, you might need a USB to RS232 adapter.
Get a copy of pkzip and zip each folder on your old PC. Install Procomm PLUS on your old PC. Run Procomm.
On the new PC, open your favorite terminal program (Tera Term, HyperTerm, etc.)
On old PC, send each file using XModem or ZModem in Procomm. On new PC, receive the file using the same protocol.
This was the way we got our files from dial-up BBSes in 80s and early 90s. The transfer through the cable is actually easier since you don't have to dial through a modem.
Cheers!
They were neat little machines. I was still using one in 2001, running Linux.
The easiest option is to use a null modem cable between the two PCs serial ports. For a file transfer app, I recommend Filelink which came with DR-DOS and therefore will be on the install disks for OpenDOS which you can download for free these days.
You only need it on one PC, it can bootstrap itself over the null modem cable.
The other option is to get a 2.5" IDE to USB adapter. You can get ones that do SATA too and will be useful in other situations in the future.
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
I assume the drive in that laptop is IDE, so get a USB to IDE adapter and connect the drive directly to a newer machine.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
In Soviet Russia you are the Man From Middle
nosig today
Hook your machine up to your modem.
Dial up to to America online.
Upload the files to a gopher.
-- Another senseless waste of fine bytes.
I have a Vantec USB2 universal disk adapter, it has connectors for IDE and SATA, with cables and power, for all the hard drives I've used since my last SCSI disk, this is the one I would use here. I picked mine up at Fry's many years ago, just as SATA disks had started to take over.
The alternative has also been mentioned, using a LapLink style cable: These packages usually came with selfloading sw where you just had to enter a single single MODE command on the console of the old machine, then the SW would copy over an ascii type bootstrap program which would load the rest.
I wrote a program to do this (the file transfer part) in the late eighties, in 1995 or so I also write a generic ascii executable generator using only those 70+ characters which the MIME mail standard specifies as transparent across all mail gateways and national encoding standards.
Terje
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"
Seems like a lot of effort. I just get a serial cable and press my tongue against the TX pin. Then type "copy COM1:" on the source machine and open up Notepad on the target. By hovering my hand over the keyboard on the target the little electrical shocks from the serial port cause spasms that make my hand type the file out. It's slow and painful but some people like that.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I don't understand why you'd need to buy an adapter at all.
Just put the disk in another computer. All desktop motherboards still have IDE.
IDEA 1 You can zip your files and send them as attachments by emails if your Antique has any access to email... Sometimes, with DSL connections they provide a dial-up access to the internet. You could get perhaps just about 44000kbps IDEA 2 If you are not in a hurry, you can always use LPT1 ports with a Direct Parallel/LPT1 cable since both have LPT1. You might get a rate of just about 300kbps... 7 minutes to transfer... Used to do it with Windows 2000 but not sure if XP still can do that. I also used to play Unreal Tournament on LPT1 ports back in the days. hehehe Good old Teenage years...
---- If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
The drives were unrecoverable and just went "click click" when later mounted back in the original PCs.
Even if your FUD was true, I don't think he particularly cares about putting it back into his Windows 3.1 386 laptop . I've never had anything like this happen, and I've done everything short of throwing drives in the air and juggling with them. Perhaps you're just "magneto-static" and shit breaks whenever you touch it.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Yeah, I have tried it on W3.11 but W2000 to W2000 it was pretty decent. LPT >LTP
---- If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
Yeah, I have NOT tried it on W3.11 but W2000 to W2000 it was pretty decent. LPT > LTP.
---- If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.
You can get one for like 5$. Attach the HDD directly to the new computer and copy files over.
I'm not sure if this is genius or insanity.
If that option is excluded, what else can I do?
Recycle it? It's not worth the power it's wasting.
Besides, if you haven't needed the data on it and transferred it/used it since then, other than the geek dick measuring aspects of it, why in God's name are you doing this? More importantly, why are you bothering us about it? The mid-90's, as far as laptops go, might as well be the dark ages.
That is all.
and stick it in the destination machine. Easier than tracking down the cables to connect them directly.
You best bet is to get the drive hooked up to a USB to IDE adapter and copy the files.
If that doesn't work get and USB to RS232 cable and a NULL Modem Adapter and connect your two machines. Ideally you should setup Linux with pppd on the new computer. Run Trumpet Winsock on your old laptop and do a manual login and just hit ESC as soon as the terminal window shows up. Once that works install and ftp daemon on one of the two machines and a ftp client on the other side. Then just copy your files.
We revamped the header and removed the left hand nav links, which hardly anybody used. There were some bugs introduced in the process, which we're now taking care of. That's pretty much it!
Many recent computers have a build in IR receiver. You can build an IR emitter for the old computer (the schematic here may be helpful http://www.lirc.org/parallel.h...). I guess it would be very slow :-
This looks nearly identical to the one I bundled with a HDD for a few bucks back in '09. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816014 It has worked great for me on many occasions. As stated, it might have problems if the HDD is especially power-hungry (check its label for power stats), but I expect it will most likely solve your problem pretty quickly, easily, and cheaply. On top of that, it's a good tool to have around for a variety of tasks related to working on random hard drives.
It's the power supply on the cheap enclosures that's the problem - running the motors too weakly and crashing the heads. If you can use an AT/ATX power supply to power the drive and the USB adapter for the data you have a robust and clean power supply.
CF cards are IDE, but with a smaller pin-out. If you have an adapter between the laptop IDE and the CF form factor you might be able to either plug the HD into a newer box with a CF adapter or plug a CF card directly into the laptop (assuming there's a second slot... or possibly even slaved on to a single cable if there isn't).
Personally I'd try PCMCIA ethernet because I still have a card or two in my basement, but who knows what crap you have.
Really, though, I just want to say thank you to the poster for a problem that Slashdotters really care about.
If any of you kiddies are interested in technology the NSA will have trouble getting at, I know of someone with a Contura laptop to sell you...
I once wired up my own cable. It was 95% reliable. (A disaster.) I buy cables now.
Look at this fool, trying to use wires and disks. Just IR blast it! It's the future!
If it really is a 386 it has an IDE/ATA interface.
I used to have that very laptop. So first, let me say:
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Okay, that's out of my system.
No, wait...
Ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Okay, I'm done. Really.
I can speak from direct experience on this one. I installed Redhad 5.0 on a Compaq Contura Aero back in the day (after downloading the entire distro over a 14.4 modem) so I had to solve this problem. Here are the issues:
1. No CD-Rom drive. No internal drive, and no way to connect one externally.
2. No USB ports
3. No built-in ethernet port
4. Only a single 16-bit PCMCIA type II slot (meaning it won't take those double-height PCMCIA hard drives IBM made back in the day.)
5. You are dealing with Dos 6 (probably 6.2) and Windows 3.11, so you don't have a lot of built-in drivers and software for transferring files. Do you have Windows for Workgroups 3.11, or just Windows 3.11? It makes a difference. The 'for Workgroups' version has software for sharing files across a network. The regular version does not.
Options:
1. As other people have stated, your best option is probably an IDE 2.5" to USB adapter. Remove the drive, plug it into the adapter, and plug that into a modern USB-equipped computer. This will give you the fastest, most reliable way to transfer files.
2. If option 1 isn't an option, you could try to find a PCMCIA to compact flash adapter. You will then need to find and install the drivers so that DOS can mount such a drive. I might still have those drivers on a disk somewhere, but it also might depend on the flavor of the adapter. Seems like you had to load a PCMCIA driver, and then a mass-storage driver on top of that, and then possibly a TSR to actually enumerate and mount the drive. I can't remember anymore, but there is some complexity to overcome. Of course, to get the drivers on to the laptop in the first place, you will either need to transfer them via floppy, or get a dial-up internet account somewhere and download them over the internet. (Good luck with the second option -- if you even have a browser already installed, it is probably Netscape 3 or 4, or IE 3 or 4 which might not be able to load whatever page you need to go to in order to download the drivers. FTP might be an option, but then you have to already have an FTP client installed. If you don't, you run into a bigger problem than before, since an FTP client or a web browser is going to be bigger than a set of PCMCIA drivers, and now how to do you get THAT on to the laptop? Transferring the drivers via floppy is probably your best option. You can buy a USB floppy drive that will work on modern computers if none of your other computers have floppy drives anymore. If for some reason a floppy drive isn't an option, then you'll need a null modem cable (more on this later)
3. You could try to find a 16-bit PCMCIA ethernet adapter. (Try ebay.) Again, you'll run into the problem of how to get the drivers installed. Again, floppy is probably your best bet. This will probably only work if you have Windows for Workgroups 3.11. If you have the standard version, you won't have any built-in software for transferring files over a network. You could use FTP or something, but then you need to get the FTP software onto laptop in the first place. Again, you might be able to do this via floppy drive.
4. Get an old parallel-connection ZIP drive off of ebay. You'll again need to install the drivers via floppy.
5. Get a copy of laplink or interlink and a null modem serial cable. You will need to install the laplink/interlink software via floppy, and then you might need to buy and old computer that can still run DOS, since I don't know if you can get a copy of laplink or interlink that can still use a null modem cable on anything other than DOS. A Windows 95/98 machine should work though. I'm sure you could find something on craigslist for not much money. Transferring files over a null modem cable will be SLOW. VERY VERY SLOW. (This is how I had to install RedHat, so believe me, I KNOW.) So, if you ca
I do this sort of thing a lot.
I have found that a 160MB hard drive is probably too old to do the sort of autodetect that most USB-ATA adapters require. These were the days of entering the harddrive parameters in setup...
The best bet for this is to get a PCMCIA network card that has PXE boot capability. Or, a PCMCIA card with a supported Etherboot binary on a floppy disk.
Then boot into a diskless linux setup over the network, and transfer as needed. My oldest net boot image for this is Redhat 9. You might want an even older one, look at Redhat 5 or Slackware 3.3.
This would be most painless because you can just transfer the whole thing over nfs. No messing around with hard drive parameters or matching up new and old hardware. No dealing with windows and dos network drivers beyond just etherboot, which has always worked great for me.
Note that you can do wonders with the old Slackware 3.3 boot disks, boot.i and net.i, maybe pcmcia.i With a PCMCIA network card and the slackware floppies, you may be able to get to an NFS mount in only two or three floppies and no PXE boot. They're also super handy because they'll detect your hardware in that dinosaur and tell you what it is.
If you stay in DOS land you'll have to zip up everything and transfer it with a terminal program, which works but requires lots of space and takes forever.
Also getting networking to work on Windows 3.11 if it wasn't already set up long ago is a big pain and should be avoided.
Best not to mess with the hardware or installed software on it at all. PXE is your friend!!
=Rich
umm FTP...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Unless it's one of those 3 &1/2" harddrives there's plenty of older ATA enclosures you can drop the harddrive into..
http://www.briggsoft.com/fmdos... File Maven (DOS) is an free DOS freeware file manager with high speed PC-to-PC file transfers via serial or parallel cable. The user interface features a dual directory display with pull-down menus, mouse support, hot keys, 50-line video support, and a choice of 10 pre-defined color schemes. Similar to LapLink.
And if FTP is too ordinary for you, or you only have 7 bits available in your cable, there's always Kermit.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Put it in an enclosure and should be able to copy the files
For the other graybeards out there, I have a Compaq SLT/286 "laptop" that I'd like to recover the files from the hard drive, a 40MB Conner Peripherals drive with what appears to be an early version of the IDE interface. The drive appears to work, and when I connect it to a Dell PC running Windows XP, it's recognized. But here's the kicker: I had partitioned it into two partitions (system and data), and the data partition was compressed with (as I recall) the disk compression driver included with DR-DOS 5. Is there any hope of retrieving the files on the data partition? I have the DR-DOS install floppies if that helps. I've considered trying to install DR-DOS on a virtual machine but don't really know how to make that work.
Oldie but Goldie Amigas 600 and 1200 are equipped with 16bit PCMCIA port. Very often used technique is using CF card in connection with CFCard reader like those: http://m.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html...
if you have to, use WinFTP to barf over your filesystem to a new folder on your updated machine. then pick and choose, or just dump it all into a flash drive.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Did you verify that the two clicking drives were working BEFORE you removed them?
(I've never, ever had removal or re-installation of an old drive change its status, and I've surely done it more than a dozen times.)
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
PCMCIA memory card might do it, if you could find one (or more) spare?
Finding a real genuine PCMCIA memory card might be hard.
But they are directly compatible with CF card.
So using a dumb CF card to 16bit pc card adapter gives a way to copy the data out of the old machine.
Then putting the CF card into any USB card reader (or in a pinch, a CF card to IDE adatper, as long as you pay attention to PIO vs UDMA) will help copying the data into a modern machine.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]