[NC Cams]

I have design programs and associated data file that is DOS based. Many of the programs will NOT run on Win 9x and above machines and the code will never be updated.

Problem: I've got tired and/or full small hard drives. Worse yet, some drives are starting to have read errors and some files can't be transferred via floppy anymore - they're simply too big.

I'm in need of a couple of things:

A. backup: I had a parallel port tape b/u device but it crashed and is no longer serviced or sold. How would you port the stuff over to back up or other HDD's from what is clearly a "legacy" DOS device that is not really supported by today's technology?

b. HDD's: where can I get HDD's suitable to reload my software to? (something in the 6-8gig range).

I'm told that DOS will recognize <8gig HDD"s but I can't find any new ones. I don't consider a "refurbished" used HDD (probably only an FDISK'd used HDD of unknown heritage) to be a reliable archival system.

Where can a person buy NEW HDD's to keep this legacy stuff alive on??? Any "industrial" drive sources out there?.

Keep in mind that some systems are semi-built in and haven't been disturbed for years - rumaging around in well seasoned cabinets and wiring is a recipe for disaster - been there, done that...

Need help soon as the read errors are becoming a bit more common and the last run of SCANDISK started showing up bad sectors which magially just appeared - never a good sign.

Thanks

[CountZero]

hmm perhaps this can help?: http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php

one remote possibility could be to use a CF to IDE adapter and use a smallish CF card? just a wild idea but might work...

[CountZero]

Actually, it seems that the CF-IDE might work: http://www.addonics.com/products/fla...er/adidecf.asp

[Bubba]

Or get a larger drive and use "partition magic" or similar program to make smaller partitions.
A large drive today is cheaper than trying to find good smaller drives!

[Al_The_Man]

Well Tiger Direct have 320GB HD for $79.00
If you can get a copy of the DOS 7.1 that was drifting around a while back, this should do all you want to do.
This is the features.
http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/whatsnew.htm
(You even get a MS-DOS splash screen)
Mount both drives in the same system and copy the files over.
Al.

[NC Cams]

Re: use of large HDD's reformatted small =

This works IF the legacy computer BIOS will recognize the formatting of the new generation large format sectoring of the new big HDD's. Some BIOS"s won't recognize the big gun drives which is another problem that I've already been bitten by.

Re: use of DOS 7.1 = It would appear that MicroSlut has put the keebosh on the hacked version of DOS 7.1 that someone extracted from Win 98 or so. Seems that it is no longer downloadable and the version of "7.1" that I did d/l'd won't run for some reason.

The (potential) problem that I have with 7.1 or other psuedo DOS's is that my software is using a lot of sophisticated memory swapping. They did this at the time to make the programs run within the old 640K DOS memory allocation - this was before upper memory useage became viable.

We also tried other "DOS's" clones and the software didn't work.

Supposedly this memory map issue is part of the reason why the programs can't/won't be updated. Namely, redoing the memory managment/useage aspect of the program just ain't gonna happen.

The programmers did some program porting to XP but that created a whole set of other problems (legacy data acquisition software used with some of the software runs on ISA buss in the PC's but not on XP suitable PC's - no ISA slots).

Like a fool, I didn't make a lifetime buy of HDD's that would work when the getting was good - simply waited too long. Now, I'm apparently screwed....

Anyway, keep the ideas coming (BTW, camera flash cards and other low buck flashes don't seem to have the read/write life cylces needed to use them in a legacy/archival grade system that can/will see repeated read/write cycles. I'd consider hardware based flash drives but they need to be substantantially as robust as a good HDD. DOM's maybe but I dunno about their durability. Any experiences to share on DOM"s???

I realize that I'm NOT in a good position here but hope that someone may know wheres some small drives may be stashed/lurking that are looking for a home. That or inexpensive DOM's in the 4-6gig range (dream on)....

[Willbird]

I know I had a few kicking around and sold them on ebay, wondered why people snapped them up like they did for as much as they paid :-)

Bill

[HuFlungDung]

I wonder, is there an ROM or something on a hard drive that tells the OS what it is? Can these be reprogrammed by someone in the know? All the sector and cylinder stuff, does that have any basis in reality or it a totally arbitrary index of the drive platters based on the resolution of the electronics?

[kochevnik]

This company : http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

makes a product called BootItNG which in spite of the funky name is the best software I've ever acutally paid for It's mainly a boot manager - allows you to boot multiple operating systems all on the same HDD. I use it for all my computers, for example I can get a fast menu screen which allows me to choose between XP, DOS, XP (in Chinese for the wife), and Linux - whatever you want.

Well the other feature of this software is you can make very quick backups and restores of any of the OS's, partitions or drives on your system. The backups can be broken up into sizes that fit on a CD too. The trial version is free.

They also have that Image for DOS program too. You might want to buy one of the older style drives, make a copy of your current stuff and use the new drive to mess around with.

[Willbird]

Why are you limited to legacy bios ?? I mean about ANY PC mainboard will run dos won't it ?? and run your hard drives ?? they are IDE drives I assume ??

so put your shady drives in a newer box, ??

I'll dig and see what I have around, I know I have a WDAC22100 right here in my hand, and a seagate ST32122A. I'll need to mount up what I have and see how they look

This place seems to have tons of refurbs

http://www.serversupply.com/HARD%20D...DE/6GB-5400RPM

[NC Cams]

Willbird = I have an open box and cold swap the HDD on it to move from DOS to Win 95 to Win 98 as the situation warrants. The box isn't the problem - the HDD is what's the problem.

I'm getting one real critical drive starting to NOT write nor work when it comes up in temp. It has 95% of my cam designs on it. I'd gladly dump it to CDROM but how do you write to a CDROM using a DOS system??? Got same problem with Win 95 HDD - namely not being able to write to a CDROM to B/U the stuff.

Seems that any CDROM writing stuff I've found requires 98SE. Tried once to read the HDD with Win 98SE but couldn't - apparently FAT16 vs FAT32 don't work so well together.

Yes, the boards will read IDE drives BUT the new big drives have such huge sector & track counts that the BIOS on the dated M/B's won't/can't understand anthing that big. Keep in mind that some of the PC's date back to simple Pentium and they didn't have 320gig HDD's then. For a BIOS to recognize something that didn't even exist when the board was created can be difficult. And most M/B's are "no name" and hardly supported with BIOS updates anymore - why should they bother with stuff so lame/obsolete???

Why? Because I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Willbird]

Linux will mount and read a dos drive :-), and copy the content to another drive...even over ethernet. The commands to copy files are pretty simple if your not a *nix head.

Chilling the drive may help you read it longer ??...I know that seagate drive I mentioned has a LOT of solid alum in it's structure so a heat sink would work decent on it I bet, not sure about your drives. People put them in the freezer to get data off them, (last resort).


Bill

[Al_The_Man]

I am suprised you are having this problem if it is just for BU only, I had a similar situation recently where an old laptop running DOS4 started to go, I used one of the many ISA/PCI ASUS socket 7 MB's I have kicking around and fitted a new HD and the old one as a slave and just did a copy of all the files.
BTW Many CD rom drives have a dos driver from the web site.
http://www.techadvice.com/tech/C/CDROM_DOSSU.htm
The ASUS MB's can be got very cheap off ebay, and ASUS have a nice support site.
Al.

[NC Cams]

I've already gotten CDROM "read" support on all my systems - this is NOT the problem.

The DOS back up problem is "how do you hook up a CDROM BURNER onto a DOS system or a Win 95 system??????"

I spent a whole weekend copying crap to the 95 box (ASPI's and god knows what else) only to learn that the Win 95 kernel wouldn't support a CDROM burner no matter what I did.

The M/B is not the problem, I've got a lifetime supply of ISA m/b's.

I need HDD's that can be formatted someway, somehow that will work with M/S DOS (not Dr DOS, not psuedo DOS nor some clone DOS) machines. Other software may work with clones, the SOB who wrote my software is using code that only works with M/S DOS 5 thru 6.22.

You can hopefully see why I'm so perplexed at this point....

[Willbird]

Well, maybe I'm seeing it wrong somehow ?? But win2k will mount and read/write a dos 6 hard drive as far as I know ??

And dos 6 if you have it, will format a drive to copy things onto. And even do Xcopy to get all the files copied over.

Then that freshly formatted in dos 6 drive with the freshly copied files, can go into a win2k machine to have the files burned to CD ??



Bill

[rancherbill]

Here's my thoughts on a solution to your problem

BUY A NEW HARD DISK

-Go to local computer store and get a new BIG disk.
-At the same time pick up Partition Magic. You'll be able to create multiple partitions on the disk. It will easily let you set up for multiple boots - DOS, win9x, XP etc.

-download FREEDOS. It's really good. It's open source MSDOS and doesn't require a licencee. It supports fat 32, so you can use it on a big disk (32 meg per partitions on very large drives)

http://www.freedos.org/freedos/files/

- set up some "DOS" partitions - FAT32.
-install several operating systems - freedos, windows etc
-Download some file transfer software, for example

http://www.programurl.com/filevan-for-dos.htm
http://www.programurl.com/filevan.htm

Get a Laplink cable (direct connect parallel cable) they are cheap $10-15 or make your own . Here's how.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310576/en-us#

Now you can transfer to your hearts ocntent.

For your removeable backup I'd buy an additional hard disk and a HARD DISK DRIVE CADDY, for example.

http://www.memoryexpress.com/index.p...ctID=3855&SID=

Youi'll have tons of room and you won't have to be buying media all the time.

REMEMBER keep your backup OFFSITE. You can keep your backup in the desk drawer and that will protect you from theft or electronic failure, BUT not from catastrophes. Think FIRE and huricane Katrina.

[NC Cams]

For whatever reason, I ran into issues with FAT16 vs FAT32 read compatibility of Win 98SE. I haven't made up my mind to waste a weekend yet trying to port to something that will burn CDROM's but that is coming.

Transferring files is one thing - I can pay to have that done or do it myself. The problem is that I need to continue using DOS 6.22 due to software issues. This is why I need some new HDD's that can be formatted to DOS.

I know how to do pretty much everything except on how/where to find new small HDD's suitable for use in/with DOS systems.

The sector/head issue compatibilty is one problem that no one can seem to explain in a definitive fashion. Few people know anything about DOS anymore as it is so primitive. Without it, however, I'd be out of business. This is why I need to find some HDD's that have life left in them.

I"ve called around and, usually after a lot of hard questioning, the "factroy refurbished HDD's" that are being offered end up really being used HDD's with God knows how much service life used/left that were merely FDISK'd.

I'd hardly call an FDISK'd HDD mechanically "refurbished" nor what you'd want to trust your archived records to. Ain't it amazing how same words mean different things in different industries.

When I "refurbish a cam", it gets straightened, ground, checked and the shape and tolerances of the profile are like or as good as new. A HDD "refurbish" would be equivalent to a solvent wipe down and maybe a lobe read/certify - hardly even a poor man's "refurbish" when it comes to cams.

I'm looking into DOM's as they are at least new and show promise - at least they're new and not God knows how old or tired "refurbished" mechanical HDD's that I have found....

[HuFlungDung]

If it really comes down to buying a refurbished disk, I've read about people using Spinrite disk utility to do a fairly thorough test of a hard drive. It might take a day or two to run though, so you'd probably want a bank of old boxes running the test while you do something else. I think the utility is tiny and runs from a floppy, IIRC.

www.grc.com is where to find Spinrite.

[rancherbill]

" I know how to do pretty much everything except on how/where to find new small HDD's suitable for use in/with DOS systems. "


A Hard disk dirve (hdd) is generic in term of usage on DOS, Windows Linux etc. The limiting factor is the interface. Obviously, you must put and IDE drive on an IDE interface. A drive with a faster interface slows down for the computer. The manufacturers build universality into the drives so that they may be used for new system, repairs, upgrades etc.

"The sector/head issue compatibilty is one problem that no one can seem to explain in a definitive fashion. "

To give the long answer to the short question, here goes. Think of an old juke box with ten records loaded. Each one of these platters (records) has two sides. Each of these sides can record and store data and the data can be read. SO in this example we have 10 read/write heads (r/w)

Electronics was not as developed as it is today. as a result the data was written in circles vs spirals. It's easy to move the head to a location then to let it spin and all the data goes by without any other movement of the r/w heads . All the r/w heads are on one mechanism that moves all the heads at once in and out. So when they are at a location they have created a cylinder. Head 1 is 1" in on platter 1, head 2 is 1" in on the bottom of platter 1, head 3 is 1" in on platter 2, head 4 is 1" in on the bottom of platter 2, etc. The O/S wites data to head 1 then head 2 etc and it does not have to do any movement.

The disk drive is spinning and there is a flood of 0s and 1s going past. it gets confusing as to what it all was. Thus, hole were drilled in the media to provide timing marks for the drives to know hwere data was starting and ending. The process is something like this. HARD SECTOR MARK, SECTOR ADDRESS, DATA PREAMBLE, DATA, POSTAMBLE, and CHECKSUM. As an aside, if you can find a 360 k floppy diskette take a look at the inner ring and you can actually see twelve holes punched in the diskette.

The first drives that i worked on really did have five platters inside. The drive manufacturers worked on increasing performance and reducuing size and power consumption. There were a ton of computers that expected to see the hard drive have certain HCS configurations. the drive manufacturers overcame this by building a translation into the drive. "If you want me to be a bla bla HCS I'll be whatever you want. The drive automatically translates from the COmputers HCS to whatever actually is happening on the drive.

An interesting note is that some drives today only have one head. The manufacturer is trying to build a 500 gig drive and one side dowsn't work, so they disable that side and sell it as a 250 meg drive.

So the short answer is slap the drive in your system and either manually set the computer to the largest size your bios knows about, or let the system autodetect the drive and you're off to the races. That's all there is to it. How it all happens is magic and you don't have to worry about it. The smarts in the drive will handle the rest. Old XTs and ATs are a different story.

Factory Refurbished

Used hard drives are found in computer stores and yes they are probably only FDISKed. A better store will do a low level format, but that takes a while and most don't bother. The usual quality test is "it works or it doesn't"

True Factory Refurbished drives are ones that have had hard failures of the electronics during warranty and have been sent back for repair. I was a computer dealer and the process for a failed hard disk is call my distributr and tell hime a drive failed, my distributor would provide me with a immediate replacement, I would return the failed hard drive and he would batch them up and return them to the factory monthly. At the factory, if the failure was inside the mechanism it would be junked. If it was in the electronics the cirsuit board would be replaced. The drive would then be resubmitted for regular product testing/certification and repackaged.

True refurbishing (machining, bearings bla bla) just doesn't happen on $200 consumer grade products.

When it left the factory it would be maked as a refurbed/repaired unit, but, it would have FULL new drive warranty.

They are typically lower priced. For example the drive has been used for 11.5 months out of the twelve month warranty period, it has take 2-3 months for the whole warranty process happen, then it is shipped back the the distributor. The total time is therefore up to 15.5 months since this was the latest and greatest. Would I buy one probably not, the new ones are on the next level and have a better deal on cost per meg basis, faster electornics, faster mechanism, etc and it wouldn't have 11.5 months wear on the mechanism.

This is why I need some new HDD's that can be formatted to DOS.

This can be a book and I'm not going to go into it all.

Use partition Magic and create new partitions. It can handle all the "magic" of moving stuff around to ccreate new partitions and also to create a multiboot computer

OR

Put the hard disk the disk in a system.
Install XP and make sure you use the multi boot feature.
Create several partitions FAT 16 (DOS), FAT 32 (win 9x) and NTFS Win XP.

I would probably create at least 2 fat16 partitions - one for your msdos system and one as a data drive. DOS can't see the data on the NTFS partions (without more software) so this extra data drive is an excellent spot to put junk that might be useful in eith DOS or XP

Multiboot works well. My system is and XP and Win98 system. I have on application that only works on 98. At power on i just select the OS that I want.

[rancherbill]

I love the program, it's very good, and myself use it, BUT........

If bad sectors are developing, well , bad sectors are developing.

Two things can be happening, the media is going bad ( actual bad spots on the magnetic are beginning to form). It doesn't stop the spot increasing in size. The other thing is the Read/Write electronics are getting weak and are having trouble reading areas of the media with lower signal stregth.

Spinrite can do nothing to correct these hardware conditions. It only fixes the remaining data on the drive so that it is retreivable and marks the sector to prevent use in the future.

Only use SPINRITE to repair the drive so that you can get the data off the drive.

Toss the drive - more bad sectors will form.