can't you take the harddrive out and plug it in a more recent system ?

Hi Qbix.
I tried to plug it into my new system, but the motherboard doesn't like IDE drives (Western Digital WD93044-X).

as in you don't have an IDE in it ?

Glottis wrote:

an old DOS 5.1 machine

There is no DOS 5.1.

The DOS box has no disk drive or network, so it has to be by serial cable. It took me a couple of days to realize that DosBox + interlnk/intersvr won't work. And another few agonizing days of Putty and System.IO.Ports.SerialPort to understand that The Powers don't want me to copy files.

Google tells me that no other person in the history of mankind has ever been able to do this. There are a couple of vague references to possible solutions that may or may not work (they don't).

Is your serial port a USB-to-serial adapter, or is it actually on your motherboard? If it's not a USB-to-serial adapter, you can just boot DOS on your Win7 box and run interlnk/intersvr from there.

If the files won't fit on a bootable floppy, use a bootable USB drive. SystemRescueCD can be booted from a USB drive and has a boot-to-DOS option, for example.

Should I open a hex editor and copy the drive manually byte by byte?

I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

Glottis wrote:

but the motherboard doesn't like IDE drives

I am as bemused as Qbix on this one. Does your motherboard not have an IDE connector, or is there something else preventing you from using it? If all else fails, external IDE-to-USB enclosures are widely available, as are IDE-to-SATA adapters.

Yes, if you don't have a IDE connector on the motherboard, as Jorpho said, you can try getting those cheap "external hard drive enclosures" - they come with the IDE to USB converter for the IDE version or SATA to USB version for SATA hard drives. Some come with combo adapters.

Jorpho wrote:

There is no DOS 5.1.

Correct, it's 5.0.

Frustration does funny things to my communication skills... I'll try to be clearer.

First I tried to connect the old computer to a serial cable. The serial cable was connected to a serial-to-usb adapter. The adapter was connected to a USB port in my Win7 box. Then I tried to interlnk/intersvr in the DosBox emulator, which failed because DosBox can't load device drivers. And I couldn't find a way to set up a direct cable connection in Win7.

Second attempt was to take out the drive and connect it to a SATA/IDE->USB cabinet. This failed because I can't get the computer to find the drive. (Usually I have a SATA drive in the cabinet, and that works fine)

Can't boot from a floppy since I have no floppy drive. Haven't tried to boot DOS from a CD, guess I'll try that next.

EDIT: Oh, and the hex editor "idea" was a joke.

Glottis wrote:

The adapter was connected to a USB port in my Win7 box. Then I tried to interlnk/intersvr in the DosBox emulator, which failed because DosBox can't load device drivers.

I'm not so sure about that. If I'm not mistaken, tools like ddloader can load device drivers from the command line, and even if those don't work, DOSBox can boot an MS-DOS disk image with a config.sys and potentially load device drivers that way.

In any case, there are probably serial-cable transfer programs that can work without requiring a device driver. You can probably even just use a standard communications terminal (one with a file transfer protocol like ZMODEM) on both ends. However, I've never had much luck with USB-to-serial adpters, so it might not be possible regardless of what you use.

Second attempt was to take out the drive and connect it to a SATA/IDE->USB cabinet. This failed because I can't get the computer to find the drive. (Usually I have a SATA drive in the cabinet, and that works fine)

After plugging in the enclosure, you might have to manually mount the drive in Computer Management (i.e. in Disk Management). You also might not have your jumpers on your drive set correctly.

Can't boot from a floppy since I have no floppy drive. Haven't tried to boot DOS from a CD, guess I'll try that next.

There's no way to use a USB-to-serial adapter from DOS, so don't bother.

I used one of these:

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Adapter-Converter … l/dp/B001OORMVQ

For "quick and dirty" hard drive swaps, it's ideal. Works with IDE, SATA and floppy disk drives. I even used it to turn an old CD-R writer into a portable burner.

Jorpho wrote:

I'm not so sure about that. If I'm not mistaken, tools like ddloader can load device drivers from the command line, and even if those don't work, DOSBox can boot an MS-DOS disk image with a config.sys and potentially load device drivers that way.

Ok, I downloaded a boot image, added interlnk.exe to it, loaded it in config.sys. DosBox can boot from the image, but not load the driver. Also tried loading it with ddloader. In both cases interlnk returns with "Connection NOT established, Driver NOT loaded". It doesn't matter which com port I use.

In any case, there are probably serial-cable transfer programs that can work without requiring a device driver. You can probably even just use a standard communications terminal (one with a file transfer protocol like ZMODEM) on both ends.

Maybe, but I can't install anything at all on one end.

After plugging in the enclosure, you might have to manually mount the drive in Computer Management (i.e. in Disk Management). You also might not have your jumpers on your drive set correctly.

I tried every possible jumper setting, but Computer Management stubbornly refused to recognize anything.

I'm beginning to think that this really, actually is impossible.

Glottis wrote:

Maybe, but I can't install anything at all on one end.

What do you mean? Does your DOS computer not have a floppy drive?

I tried every possible jumper setting, but Computer Management stubbornly refused to recognize anything.

We're talking about the same thing, right? The little plastic thingamabob that's on the end of the drive itself, next to the IDE connector?

Glottis wrote:

I'm beginning to think that this really, actually is impossible.

You give up too easily. Many people have done something of this nature before.

Jorpho wrote:

What do you mean? Does your DOS computer not have a floppy drive?

Yes, but it's broken. Some time during its 20 years in my basement, something heavy and sharp fell into it, and... it's not pretty.

We're talking about the same thing, right? The little plastic thingamabob that's on the end of the drive itself, next to the IDE connector?

Yup, three of them. On or off.

You give up too easily.

To be fair, I really have no idea what the hell I'm doing.

These old IDE drives are not neccessarily compatible with modern adapters or BIOS.

Glottis wrote:

Yes, but it's broken. Some time during its 20 years in my basement, something heavy and sharp fell into it, and... it's not pretty.

I see. Well, among your options, replacing that floppy drive is probably one of the cheapest and straightforward ones at this point. After that, maybe you could put a network card in the old machine, install the relevant software, and transfer files that way.

Otherwise, I might suggest getting a PCI card with a serial port for your newer machine. Those tend to be much more reliable than USB-to-serial adapters, and even if you can't get Interlnk to work with DOSBox one way or another, you'd be able to reboot your machine into DOS with a bootable CD or USB drive and run it that way.

I was recently able to get a 1GB Conner to connect to a Win7x64 box using a Vantec IDE/SATA-to-USB adapter, picked it up and used it fine. One issue I do have occasionally when using an IDE-to-USB device is that sometimes for the drive to initialize properly, the power cord must be powered on at the exact moment the USB is plugged into the machine(like a real computer would). My Vantec has a little on/off switch on the adapter to do this.

If that doesn't work, do you have another machine that has Internal IDE? Or a different machine (like a Laptop) to connect the USB to and see if it likes it?

h-a-l-9000 wrote:

These old IDE drives are not neccessarily compatible with modern adapters or BIOS.

+1. Once I tried to connect my old 41MB Conner disk from a 286 PC to backup some data it had, using two ways. First by connecting it directly to the board's IDE connector (an Asrock Core2Duo which I had at the time), and also using an IDE to SATA HDD BOX. In both cases the result was the same. The OS would recognise the disk, but had to format it before it can be used. While on the old 286 it was working fine. I guess that has to do with really old hard disks, and the newer and larger ones should be ok.

Borrowed a couple of floppy drives from the discarded harware pile at work, installed them in the old PC, and none of them can access a floppy. The little LED shines, but the floppy doesn't seem to turn.

Also tried to plug the old drive directly into the new pc, as Qbix suggested from the start, but disk management couldn't find it, of course. Is there some trick to this?

I'm not superstitious, but if I owned a black goat, I'd sacrifice it by now.

Exactly how many MB of data do you need to transfer or how big is the hard drive? Once you determine that you can decide if you want to shell out extra money for a new floppy drive, network card, etc.

Since you can't get the old drive to work with your new PC you will have to transfer from old PC to new. Word of caution - transferring files via serial is SLOOOWWW. Depending on the amount of data it probably means leaving both machines on all night while they transfer files. Parallel is what I always used but most new PCs don't come with a parallel port.

The way I see it you're gonna have to plunk down some money and

a) buy a NIC for the older PC and use MSLAN Manager to connect the old to the new via a CAT 5 crossover cable (faster than serial).

b) buy a PCI parallel port adapter for the newer PC and transfer via parallel laplink cable (also faster than serial). I don't recommend buying one since it will probably never be used again once you transfer your files.

If you are having trouble getting interlink to work with DOSBOX try using FreeDOS in MS Virtual PC 2007.

I use USB->Serial adapters all the time, they work great with external modems and terminals, should be no problem using it to transfer files aside from the slow speed.

Before you ask USB->Parallel adapters are the opposite - they only work for printers and nothing else (no transfers, ZIP Drives, scanners, dongles, etc.).

EDIT: If interlink is still giving you problems try this.

Hi NC. It's only 20Mb or so, and speed doesn't matter. I'll settle for anything that works.

Can't use a network card on the old PC because I'd have to install drivers etc. It's basically a closed system.

FreeDos + interlnk + PCI parallel port is probably worth a try, thanks.

Right now I'm trying to figure out why the replacement floppy drive doesn't work. Seems like a very basic problem, but bios just can't find it. It should be possible to use a new(ish) drive in an ancient (1990) PC if it uses standard IDE connectors, right?

Floppy connectors aren't IDE, even though they look sort of similar.

Are you plugging in the cable the right way? As I recall, the light will come on if the cable is plugged in the wrong way, but of course it won't work. There should be a red stripe on the cable that corresponds to "pin 1" (which should be marked on both the floppy drive and the motherboard).

Also, is the drive correctly configured in the BIOS?

If it's a really old floppy drive (and if the BIOS is also really old), it also might only support 720k disks and not the usual high-density ones.