[HuFlungDung]

Rancherbill,
That is the whole point of running Spinrite, IMO, if you do not trust that the drive is good. If Spinrite 'fixes' anything, then you know the disk is not in tip top shape.

[rancherbill]

You're entirely right it can be used, exactly the way you are proposing, with great confidence and success.

My background is computer repair. I only saw the drives once they had problems.

Spinrite was my first choice on these MSDOS era drives.

For newer drives we used

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.ca/ea...yprofessional/

It's $969 cdn.

With big drives with problems especially ones that had problems in the FAT, we would charge up to $450 for data recovery. It could take up to 16 hours, on a TOP of the line computer with tons of memory, to do a data repair/recovery. We very seldom got a total 100% recovery,:wee: something "important" for the customer would be lost.


The reality of computers today is that installing XP, for example, doing updates, installing application, installing application updates, restoring data , if backups exist, downloading from the internet all the little apps and features that everybody loves and uses, getting all the settings and preferences back the way that they were, solving all the little tweaks that make the software work as you desire, etc, etc takes a heck of a long time and youi'll probably never get back to where you were.

If there is a hint of problems, buy a new drive. It will come with an installation utility that will copy all your create partitions, format the drive, copy programs, data, settings over to the new drive. The only thing you have to do is fix anything files that were not recoverable/fixable. For example re-install MSOffice to restore some lost DLLS.

Having seen the anguish on the faces of my customers, I have the attitude get a new drive if there is any chance that it might not be reliable.

Cheap old computers are great, I use them myself. The MTBF (mean time between failures) on the old drives is approx 10,000 hours. 50 weeks x 40 hrs per week = 2000 hrs per year. Thus on a five year old drive you might expect to see some problems. Some will run for another ten years with no problems, thats the great thing about averages. You are entering a zone of risk.

So this is my reason behind getting new drives a the hint of a problem.

[pminmo]

I'm fairly sure that you can find a IDE to CF adapter. At the price of low density CF's getting lower and lower, you can buy a handfull and toss them when they start to detiorate. before long you will be able to get a 2G for $20 or less. Erase/Write cycles are really the life issue, not read with flash. Most old dos stuff doesn't use the HD as virtual memory, so if the programs don't do a lot of writing to the flash, I suspect it's your best choice.

[rancherbill]

PMINMO

What's a CF?

Thanks

[NC Cams]

Here's where I stand (for many reasons that I won't bore folks with):

Can't/won't use XP - the DOS programs I have puke on XP. Besides, I don't feel like M/S knowing what I do and how I do it with their internet registration of XP based systems.

I have a "semi clean" liscense of 98SE.

Would someone talk me thru (I'm really dumb with some combputer stuff) what I have to do to do a dual boot with 98SE. (what to buy HDD wise - the HDD people say that they don't have anything that will work anymore but you'se guys indicate otherwise - I am SOOOO confused)

I had a local computer shop load a Dual boot DOS + 98SE onto my laptop but they won't allow me to use the same license of 98SE on another HDD - apparently M/S had some lawyers into their shop and they now have the fear of the M/S Gods as they damn near felt the wrath of their legal staff.

Apparently 98Se will recognize larger disks and allow multi boot (that would fix my backup problems with the ability to burn CD's with 98SE). I've proven that my goofy ass cam design software will run on a DOS/98SE dual boot system on my laptop (but I don't know how to duplicate a boot system of one on my own).

The computer geek kids here in town have their eyes gloss over when I mention DOS - if it ain't XP, they are essentially clueless when you mention DOS and some shops won't even mess with DOS systems.

Where are old timers when you need them?????

[Willbird]

NC I ran win 3.11 when it was all there was hehe :-)

The easiest way I know of to do muti boot is a commercial program to do it called "system commander"

There is a freeware program I use for Linux/gates called Lilo . it will boot, and offer you a list, then it will boot off differant partitions.

I THINK if you boot into dos you can still just type "win" to get 98se ??

The EASIEST way to get dos without altering your system is just boot off a floppy, I know thats not what you want however.

Bill

[pminmo]

CF is short for compact flash. It was one of the early form factors for digital camera's.

NC, you don't need to dual boot win98 and dos. Dos is the OS for win98, windows is just a shell. Basically you want to stop dos before it starts windows in the msdos.sys file with a simple menu isntruction.

Don't start the Lilio, Grub, Smart boot path you don't need it for just dos and win98.

http://www.mdgx.com/msdos.htm#MEN

[Willbird]

I thought win98 used DOS 7 ??

Bill

[NinerSevenTango]

Here's what I would do:

Assuming you have a Win98 computer with decent drives in it ....

Pull the drive from the old box and install it in the Win 98 box, fudge the jumpers to make the old one a slave.

Copy the programs off the old drive onto the new drive. Then whenever you want to run the dos stuff, I believe 98 lets you "exit to dos". So you can run your legacy stuff on the newer machine that way.

If you don't want to swap drives around, see if you can find an old copy of Laplink with the parallel cable. I used to do backups that way in the old days, and it was reliable, fast, and cheap. Heck, I might even have one of those old cables out in the garage somewhere. It used to run in dos, even when you started it from Win98. You just run it on both computers with the cable hooked up, and you could see the files on the other hard drive in a window. Seemed very high tech at the time.

Good Luck. By the way, my experience with hard drives giving warnings that they are going to fail leads me to get the data off the drive the next time it starts up. You are lucky if you get a warning at all, and you don't usually get many. I've done the routine of putting a drive in the freezer, copying files off it for three minutes until it warms up and pukes, over and over again. Now I run backups.

I was reluctant to leave dos, not reluctant to leave Win95, pretty reluctant to leave 98 once I figured out how to make it stable, but pretty glad to get XP because it really is stable. I'm kinda surprised you have old DOS machines still functioning.

PM me if you need help. You can run your dos stuff on modern equipment, and I can help you do it. If you need to set Win98 up for dual boot to older dos, that can be done too, here's a link to how it's done:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/153762/en-us

--97T--

[vladdy]

..if all you want is backup, why not use a network card in the dos based box and pull the data off with a newer system with a dvd burner or similar..??

[pminmo]

If you need to set Win98 up for dual boot to older dos, that can be done too, here's a link to how it's done:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/153762/en-us

--97T--

That article is for NT, 2000, XP and newer OS. Starting with NT, the boot process is different, and NT and up is an operating system. Win98 is a shell for DOS, no dual boot process is required. Win98 boots to DOS, then starts the windows shell (graphical interface).

Guys, he just wants dos and win98 options, and doesn't want to run dos from the win98 shell.

[NC Cams]

VLADDY: why not use a network card?

Because it is damn near impossible to find ANYTHING that will "network" with DOS - too frigging primative.

You can network with Win 3.11 but the drive isn't stable enough to load the Win crap on it and then mess with it in order to get the network to work.

We have all sorts of neat ideas but none on where to find HDD's... I"m waiting for a reply from Seagate and other HDD makers and hoping that they have HDD's that will work. Will investigate Partition Magic as that might be a way to get a monster HDD to work, namely by making small partitions that DOS can live with and Win whatever can live with the rest.....

[DR-Motion]

Excuse the gruffness,but...

GET YER FRIGGIN' FILES ONTO A NEW DRIVE (on a new system) N O W.
GOD SAYS SO.

Temporarily hook up your at risk drive(s) to a new style system and configure it as a secondary drive. Copy all your files. They are now safe.

NOW #itch about how to fix up your legacy system.

Good Luck, Gary

[pminmo]

NC,
Probably the biggest piece of info needed is the info about the bios of the computers involved. When the machines boot the bios mfg and version and probably date will be put on the screen. What is the oldest?

It's a real possibility that you don't have any huge issue other than formatting the drive correctly.

[Ron22]

This will not solve your problem but
DOS is not that hard to network with. It will work with XP or 2000 all you have to do is install the DOS network drives and map the drives.
I have set up DOS machines to log into a Windows network and do per to per (at multiple companies)

I would install you Harddrive in another computer and copy all the info on a good harddrive.
Buy some old small harddrive and take my chances (still have the info backed up)
If this is a real money making maching upgrade the machine to a new control system.
If not install a floppy and boot DOS of that and load the network drives and pull the needed info off a netwroked drive.


[QUOTE=NC Cams;230515]VLADDY: why not use a network card?

Because it is damn near impossible to find ANYTHING that will "network" with DOS - too frigging primative.
QUOTE]

[NC Cams]

Dear DR Motion: The next time you are talking to/with God, ask hime where I can find some NEW hard drives that are = or < 8gig that are suitable for use on DOS??? If I could have found them, I won't even be asking for help...

ALL the HDD makers I've contacted say that their current drives WON'T WORK WITH DOS (sector and track and bios issues apparantly).

I've gotten a number of leads on "refurbished" drives but, from experience, God only knows how short the fuse is on these G/D things. Besides, "refurb" drives are already giving me fits - why should I expect different results from the same sort of parts with unknown service histories????

Ron22: please see prior post about "issues", concerns and reasons why XP and/or other forms of Windows or contemporary O/S's won't work - namely to save you the research - the g-damn software that I use to design cams (the mainstay of my business) won't run on anything but DOS 5 thru 6.22 and/or Win 3.11 - I thought that I made that clear earlier, if not, I just did.

I don't know why nor do I care to figure out why other "psuedo DOS's" won't work on anything but DOS/Win 3.11. Worse yet, the creators of the software won't be redoing my customized code for XP or the like, at least not unless I spend a small fortune which I don't have or the guy simply refuses to support it anymore no matter how much money I offer to throw at him.

Ron22: if I could find good NEW drives that were suitable, I wouldn't be in the situation I face nor would I be asking for help. The whole issue is due to an inavailability of "small" NEW drives that can be formatted to 8.2gig or SMALLER.

I will be looking into the "Partition Magic" option however, as this may be a remedy worth looking at/into.

[Willbird]

NC, not be gruff, but what do you do when a customer paints himself into a corner with what he wants that all of your know how won't get him out of ??

With these new BIG hard drives on your old system, what happens ?? does it not work at all, or you can only see and partition 8 gigs ??

If the latter, hell just use the smallest new one you can find them.

The other thing not discussed yet is SCSI drives, I know they didnt have some of the silly problems IDE did ??


Bill

[DR-Motion]

Mr. NCCams,

What I was trying to suggest is that you take measures to preserve your valuable data files before your present drives finally fail.
This can be done because your present drives ARE compatible with the newer computers and their data CAN be copied to a modern drive.

Once your data are safe, albeit unusable, you can then try some of the suggestions concerning partitioning a newer style drive to be at least partially visible to your legacy systems.

By the way, last time I spoke to God, she told me she cound't find a lawyer to make sense of the EULA and that electronics and especially hard drives were manufactured by an ex angel who is trying to spread insanity to all good people.

Hope that helps, Gary

[NC Cams]

This has been an interesting albeit frustrating experience.

I've been told any number of times to "buy the HDD and simply reformat it to 8gig"

Yet, when I contacted several HDD makers (Quantum, WD and/or Seagate), their reply was unanimously "the currrent drives won't work with DOS'. So do I believe the HDD makers or the plethora of opinions to the contrary?????

In spite of the fact that my particular software suite can't/won't EVER work with XP, Win 2K or any non-M/S Dos O/S, I've been told by all kinds of folks to "install XP" and goodness knows what else which I already know that my software won't work on/with - Been there, done that, it WON'T WORK.

If someone indicated to create a dual boot system with DOS and Win98SE (a seemingly viable option as it was done on a laptop), I'd do it in a minute. I paid the computer shop to do it BUT they won't install the same license of Win 98SE on a second PC,

Phil's last sentence in post #31 reply is the most clear understanding of what I want/need to do...

BUT, BUT, BUT

I've learned that there is a Fat 16 issue with Win 98SE and also a HDD size limitation (BIOS or software - I dunno which because I've gotten SO MANY DIFFERENT ANSWERS!!!!).

This brings back the HDD size issue since Win 98SE is a high end variant of DOS and there are size compatibility issues with big HDD's pursuant to the HDD manufacturers.

[NC Cams]

Dr Motion: I plan to save the data but d/l'ing to disks is just too impractical. Besides, some files now can't be saved to disk unless you span disk and I've had some issues with that on occasion. Once burned, forever shy.

If I could burn a CDROM via DOS and/or Win 95 (neither is capable of burning a CDROM), that would suit me fine as I could d/l the data, FDISK, revitalize, whatever. HOWEVER, I can't backup my critical data!!!!

I did have a parallel port based tape back up.

BUT, it now doesn't stop when it sees the end of tape signal and tears up tapes. To make matters worse, they don't sell/service the tape b/u device anymore and I hardly even used the damn thing.

Gang, I appreciate the well intended ideas but many of them are either not viable or invovle backing up data that I can't back-up or readily download, YET....