7F20 wrote on 2020-02-26, 00:04:

Sorry for the necropost, but it's on topic... […]
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Sorry for the necropost, but it's on topic...

I am trying to do this, but it's for a laptop and I don't have a second IDE port. I have a desktop with single IDE HDD connection in it that I can use.
My plan was to copy the HDD to my windows 10 machine and then get it onto the CF card over the same IDE port with an IDE-CF adapter.

Thing is, I don't know what I'm supposed to format the CF as in windows 10. Or maybe it's easier/better to use a disk imaging program like win32diskimager?

Can anyone help?

Thanks

My process would be
1. remove HDD from laptop
2. install CF card into laptop and format using fdisk
3. hook up HDD and CF card to IDE port on Win10 computer
4. boot into DOS and run XCOPY
5. move CF card back to laptop.

Also think about creating a backup image of the HDD just as a precaution while you've got it hooked up to your Win10 machine.

Good luck! 🙂👍

DOS 6.22's XCOPY lacks the switches to copy hidden and system files, that didn't come along until Win98 IIRC

Macrium Reflect Free is a great tool for making an image of a drive; especially now that they've made viBoot to boot the images you take.

It will NOT write an image to CF card if your card has the removeable bit set; it has to show up as an 'internal' drive - queue the search for SiliconDrive cards and other 'industrial' CFs...

Split necro to new thread.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-02-26, 04:25:

DOS 6.22's XCOPY lacks the switches to copy hidden and system files, that didn't come along until Win98 IIRC

ok. thanks for info maxtr. any alternative suggestions?

NautilusComputer wrote on 2020-02-26, 13:06:

It will NOT write an image to CF card if your card has the removeable bit set; it has to show up as an 'internal' drive - queue the search for SiliconDrive cards and other 'industrial' CFs...

I don't understand "removable bit set." I'd like to explore this option, but I can't make sense out of your warning. Can you elaborate at all?

Thanks

^I don't meant to be inpolite (the question was not directed to me), but..
To my understanding, the removable media bit is a bit that can be set on flash cards. Some operating systems, like Windows NT based ones (Win 2k/XP..), pay attention to it.
For example, on such an OS, a removable medium is not allowed to be partitioned or to be formatted with NTFS via the GUI dialogs.
From the little what I experienced so far, DOS and other OSes from the early 90s are too old to be aware of it.
Never the less, there used to be a DOS utility made by SanDisk (it's now sought after) that lets you change the bit from "removable" to "fixed".
Apparently, this was seen necessary in order to use Compact Flash cards in industrial/embedded applications.
The utility was not universally usable with all CF cards, though. Only some old models made by SanDisk worked with it.
Anyway, Industrial CF cards are often set as "fixed", which makes it easier to install and run Windows XP from it.
In the past, the Car PC scene often used such cards in order to get XP running without a -by comparison- fragile HDD.
Another workaround, on XP, is to install a special INF file that made "removable" CF cards work by giving them "another personality" (different ID in device manager).

Edit: To make things a little bit more complicated but also more complete (I'm sorry, but I think its good to know).. 😀
Strictly speaking, MS-DOS 6/7 needs no partition in order to boot. A simple, valid FAT structure is all it needs.
If installed on a flash drive without a partition, the medium becomes a "super floppy".
It behaves, like its name suggests, like a huge floppy disk. So far so good..
However, if you plug such a CF into the card reader on a modern PC running Windows, it *may* detect the flash card as removable medium automatically.
Even though the media bit was set to "fixed" previously. It's no problem per se, though. Just wanted to let you know in case you encounter such a special case.

Jo22 wrote on 2020-02-28, 20:21:

^I don't meant to be inpolite (the question was not directed to me),

I'm happy for any information. Thanks.

I understand now more about the removable bit. It sounds like it's irrelevant for my application since this laptop will never run anything beyond windows 3.1.

However, I'm still left wondering how I can copy the OS from the HDD to the CF card. The issue brought up by the previous post is that the aforementioned disk imaging software cannot copy to the CF card if the removable bit is set. Maxtherabbit has stated that xcopy is incapable of copying the hidden files and won't work. (or maybe it will work if I use xcopy in powershell?)

My suggestion is use AOMEI. Copy the 486 partition to a new partition space on that computer of a size matching that you want to use for the flash disk. Then connect the flash disk and do the reverse.

7F20 wrote on 2020-02-26, 00:04:

I am trying to do this (clone an old 486 hard drive to CompactFlash or SSD), but it's for a laptop and I don't have a second IDE […]
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I am trying to do this (clone an old 486 hard drive to CompactFlash or SSD), but it's for a laptop and I don't have a second IDE port. I have a desktop with single IDE HDD connection in it that I can use.
My plan was to copy the HDD to my windows 10 machine and then get it onto the CF card over the same IDE port with an IDE-CF adapter.

Thing is, I don't know what I'm supposed to format the CF as in windows 10. Or maybe it's easier/better to use a disk imaging program like win32diskimager?

Can anyone help?

Thanks

If you're truly cloning, as in taking each bit from the old HDD and moving it to the new HDD so that they look the same to the OS, I don't think formatting is something you need to worry about. Copying the files won't give you everything you need, unless DOS works differently from later OS's, you need to copy the MBR to have a bootable machine. My go-to for cloning, creating image files of disks, and writing image files to disks, has been DD in Linux from a live USB disk.

I can't caution you enough though, to read the manual for DD, write the command you want in notepad/on pen and paper, and even disconnect your main HDD(s) on your desktop if you do it there - accidentally putting the wrong argument in DD can completely wipe a drive you didn't mean to modify. I imagine the command will be something like "dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb"

On second thought, can you make a bootable floppy with something like WD lifeguard on it, and then use a $4 PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter card to do it all from your laptop?

Early versions of DOS require IO.SYS to be the first file in the root directory (handled by the SYS command) so copying files individually doesn't always work. Later versions of DOS aren't as picky.

7F20 wrote on 2020-02-28, 18:07:

maxtherabbit wrote on 2020-02-26, 04:25:

DOS 6.22's XCOPY lacks the switches to copy hidden and system files, that didn't come along until Win98 IIRC

ok. thanks for info maxtr. any alternative suggestions?

I've been told that the freeDOS version has them, and will run in MS/PC DOS just fine

halls_well wrote on 2020-02-29, 02:47:

On second thought, can you make a bootable floppy with something like WD lifeguard on it, and then use a $4 PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter card to do it all from your laptop?

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a modern OS. Is there an easy way to just transfer the whole HDD installation to the CF card by doing this? I've got some stuff like a word processor and other programs installed that I'd like to keep.

Thanks

(and thanks to the other responses, I'm reading everything and trying to get the whole picture so I can figure out the easiest way to do this)

7F20 wrote on 2020-02-29, 16:38:

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a mod […]
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halls_well wrote on 2020-02-29, 02:47:

On second thought, can you make a bootable floppy with something like WD lifeguard on it, and then use a $4 PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter card to do it all from your laptop?

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a modern OS. Is there an easy way to just transfer the whole HDD installation to the CF card by doing this? I've got some stuff like a word processor and other programs installed that I'd like to keep.

Thanks

(and thanks to the other responses, I'm reading everything and trying to get the whole picture so I can figure out the easiest way to do this)

What about an old, OLD copy of Norton Ghost?

connect cf card as second harddrive,
(assuming your cf card has at least equal or bigger size, else:.
if you defrag harddisk before you can copy only used space and repair fs later with scandisk/chkdsk.. For example, if you copy 2Gb HDD with only 200Mb used to 512Mb CF)

boot tomstrtb on your Retro Computer. (At least 4 megs required for tomstrtb)
http://ftp.scientificlinux.org/linux/contrib/ … mages/tomsrtbt/

login as root,

enter:

dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/hdb bs=2048

where hda is Harddrive and hdb is CF Drive.

wait until finished.

connect CF Card as Primary Drive, boot from DOS Floppy
enter C:
enter a:fdisk /mbr

Reboot from CF.

If you have no Secondary Port:
You can mount network fs in tomstrtb and write your image to network location.
Then insert target drive and write from your network location.

Its possible todo network over simple Nullmodem Cable if no network card is avaible.

There is also DOS Software doing full backups over Nullmodem.
This will work with DOSBox.
For Example you can run FastLynx or Laplink on DOSBox and copy it over Nullmodem Cable + USB Adapter to your Notebook.
This only requires mode.com on the laptop and a serial port.
Then you can start moving Files around, eg. copy whole harddrive over serial or parallel link.

when you`re done, you just use sys a: c: on your boot floppy to transfer dos boot files to the cf and make it bootable.

You can look here, i once wrote a Step by Step Guide but its German, maybe use google translate should help you.
You dont need language to understand the pictures.

http://www.dosforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=11107

Hopefully my spelling isnt that wrong

Edit - what matze79 said is exactly what my post is, and that post is much more legible than mine 😀

7F20 wrote on 2020-02-29, 16:38:

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a mod […]
Show full quote

halls_well wrote on 2020-02-29, 02:47:

On second thought, can you make a bootable floppy with something like WD lifeguard on it, and then use a $4 PCMCIA to CompactFlash adapter card to do it all from your laptop?

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a modern OS. Is there an easy way to just transfer the whole HDD installation to the CF card by doing this? I've got some stuff like a word processor and other programs installed that I'd like to keep.

Thanks

(and thanks to the other responses, I'm reading everything and trying to get the whole picture so I can figure out the easiest way to do this)

Yes! You can transfer it all, it will look to your computer like nothing's changed when you replace the IDE with the CF. What matze79 or NautilusComputer said are exactly what you want - boot from a floppy that has clone capabilities (tomsrtbt is Linux which will give you DD, but PLEASE PLEASE read the DD manual and understand it before you run the command because you don't want to pave your info!!! , Norton is likely something similar under the hood). If it was me, that's what I'd do, you could also put both disks in your desktop one way or another at the same time, OR you could put the HDD in your desktop, do "dd if=/dev/[old HDD] of=/home/myname/oldhddimage.img" to create an image of your HDD, and then put in the CF card instead of HDD and do "dd if=/home/myname/oldhddimage.img of=/dev/[NEW CF HDD]". Getting the block size correct will reduce wear put on the CF during writing as well, 512 may be the right number?

7F20 wrote on 2020-02-29, 16:38:

I can get that adapter, but the programs I have been looking at to transfer the OS from the HDD to the CF card all require a modern OS.

You just said you were going to use Windows "10" to do the transfer. Is that not the system with the "IDE port?"

Just so you understand, my way is free and easy. Look it up if you are still searching for a method.

For an 1:1 image, I'd simply try out Win32DiskImager.
Not sure if it works with mechanical HDDs also, but if it does, these are steps:

1) Connect the old HDD to a PC first (IDE, USB adapter ect)
2) Run Win32DiskImager
3) Read HDD into an image files (*.img)
4) Quit program if finished.
5) Disconnect HDD properly
6) Connect CF card to PC
7) Run Win32DiskImager again
8) Write the previously saved image to the CF card

Or just try an old copy of Acronis True Image and use the cloning feature (v7, v9-10 etc).
It can be run from Windows or can boot on its own (has DOS and Linux based live medium).
Min specs are a Pentium w/ 64MB of RAM.

hwh wrote on 2020-03-01, 04:19:

You just said you were going to use Windows "10" to do the transfer. Is that not the system with the "IDE port?"

Yes, I did. I missed your suggestion of amoie. I check it out. It would still be easiest to do it this way as I don't have to buy anything extra. Thanks.