13 Jan
2015
13 Jan
'15
8:32 p.m.
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is
a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it
to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7,
didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't
fit on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
13 Jan
13 Jan
8:57 p.m.
You can attach the drive via the adapter cable to Linux, copy the files you want to USB
flash drive, then put them on the computer of your choice.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Taylor
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 2:33 PM
To: Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups 3.11.
The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried
to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it
under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a
floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
-----
No virus found in this message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 2014.0.4800 / Virus Database: 4257/8923 - Release Date: 01/13/15
9:13 p.m.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Electronics Plus wrote:
You can attach the drive via the adapter cable to
Linux, copy the files
you want to USB flash drive, then put them on the computer of your
choice.
The problem is that some of the more "modern" IDE to USB adapters don't
like talking to the older drives.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
8:58 p.m.
I'm surprised you had any trouble with the USB to IDE, usually they work
pretty seamlessly. One thing to check is, whether the drive is explicitly
set to master? A lot of those branded PCs used drives set to Cable Select
and then had a funky IDE cable with one of the pins crossed or something.
Best,
Sean
On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 3:32 PM, Douglas Taylor <dj.taylor4 at verizon.net>
wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a
420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one
of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit
on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
8:58 p.m.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for workgroups
3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB
Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those
IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on
a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1
but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
Just abort the AUTOEXEC.BAT processing. F8 I think. That'll allow you to
abort the Windows start and hit a DOS prompt without interference.
g.
--
Proud owner of F-15C 80-0007
http://www.f15sim.com - The only one of its kind.
http://www.diy-cockpits.org/coll - Go Collimated or Go Home.
Some people collect things for a hobby. Geeks collect hobbies.
ScarletDME - The red hot Data Management Environment
A Multi-Value database for the masses, not the classes.
http://scarlet.deltasoft.com - Get it _today_!
9:20 p.m.
Have you tried Disk2VHD from here:-
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/ee656415.aspx
you may then be able to boot the disk in Virtual PC, VMWare or DOSBOX. You can also mount
the VHD as a drive in Windows/7 from Disk Manager.
Dave
G4UGM
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Douglas Taylor
Sent: 13 January 2015 20:33
To: Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that ran Windows for workgroups 3.11.
The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried
to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it
under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a
floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
9:23 p.m.
Many if not most IDE<>USB adapters have trouble with old drives that only
know Cyl/Trk/Sec and not LBA.
Once you get that old PC booted PKZIP or any of the 'split' programs will
let you copy to multiple floppies if the PC is too old for a USB stick or
networking of some sort.
m
----- Original Message -----
From: "Douglas Taylor" <dj.taylor4 at verizon.net>
To: "Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2015 3:32 PM
Subject: Recovering Win3.1 Data
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a
420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to
one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't
work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit
on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
14 Jan
14 Jan
12:07 a.m.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Mike Stein wrote:
Many if not most IDE<>USB adapters have trouble
with old drives that
only know Cyl/Trk/Sec and not LBA.
Once you get that old PC booted PKZIP or any of the 'split' programs
will let you copy to multiple floppies if the PC is too old for a USB
stick or networking of some sort.
Those sort of USB<->ATA adapters also only work with later ATA drives
which report their CHS values /and/ which were formatted using their
default (not manually selected) CHS values. A CFA420A would have been new
right around the time ATA drives began reporting their CHS so they could
be autoconfigured in CMOS setup, but many motherboard and PC manufacturers
still didn't support autoconfiguration until later.
Many name brand PC manufacturers also didn't even have a user definable
drive type available, so the end user would often have to select a /close/
drive from a table of predefined drive types, which probably wouldn't have
the same CHS values as the drive. If I were to guess, it is quite possible
the Packard Bell machine the CFA420A drive had been installed in was one
of these systems that did not support drive autoconfiguration and probably
didn't have a user definable drive type. Getting one of these drives to
work 100% error-free with a different motherboard is often a trial and
error sort of thing, but it can be done.
Given the small size of the drive, I'd probably just use a SCSI connected
ZIP drive to do the transfer.
13 Jan
13 Jan
10:01 p.m.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for workgroups
3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner.
I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to
USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't fit on a
floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start WIN3.1
but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
How old is "old PC", is it at least 80386? Do you have another IDE disk
available that works with your IDE/SATA to USB bridge?
Given that you mentioned Linux I infer you're prepared to use it and then
I think the path of least resistance (for me at least, FWIW) would be to
install Linux on that other disk to start it on the old PC and then copy
data from the other disk there. The two disks should work just fine as a
master and a slave with any IDE adapter (very old IDE disks occasionally
had compatibility problems in a master/slave configuration with other
drives, but that would be within the 40MB range rather than 400MB). You
may have to find an old distribution to stay compatible with your old PC's
processor, but that shouldn't be a problem (I have recently looked for
RedHat 2.1 to check something there and it was still online).
Beware of the old limitations though, often long forgotten, such as the
need to put the boot partition within the first 508MB; other data may be
anywhere. You may need to know the right C/H/S disk geometry too when
installing the boot loader. Of course you can boot the kernel from a
floppy instead since you have it; then you can ignore the limitations.
Please note that support for the 80386 has been dropped from the Linux
kernel a while ago and modern distributions may require a newer yet
processor such as at least a P6-class one due to the instruction set
selection made with package compilation options; to say nothing of memory
size requirements, that is.
Maciej
10:17 p.m.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2015, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is
a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it
to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7,
didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't
fit on a floppy.
THAT is a soluble problem.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS,
it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
You could try a recovery via Linux.
What would you gain?
You are already getting the capability of saving files to floppy.
1) can you install a bigger "floppy". Such as CDR, floptical, a second
hard disk that is easier to work with, a USB flash drive, . . .
What version of DOS is it?
Official support of USB flash drives didn't really happen until Win98SE.
If you can't install a bigger drive, . . .
2) Can you boot your Win3.11 in "safe mode" and disable the demand for
sound card?
Then you have a few more options.
Got a network card? or a modem?
and communications software?
Dial-up internet will take a VERY long time.
Z/XMODEM transfer will take a long time, but doesn't require much
hardware.
If communications are also out, . . .
3) you should be able to get additional software into the machine by
putting it on floppy with another machine.
PKZIP should be able to split large files.
If not, there are other programs that can.
BACKUP, which came with DOS can split files.
You might then need to play SETVER games on another machine to run it
there to read those split files back in.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
10:33 p.m.
On 1/13/2015 12:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It
is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching
it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7,
didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't
fit on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
I would look at other solution implementations of the USB dongle. I
have some that work and some that do with various different IDE drives.
Some of it could have been strict setting of master / slave settings.
There were some drives that had master only and master on one drive,
master on the other when there were two drives involved. Sometimes it
worked fine in one system with those drives, but other controllers
didn't like the setting if you moved the single drive.
I also am suspicious of some of the power supplies that come in the kit
with the IDE / USB dongles. I had some that worked if I left them in
the original systems, but didn't work on the power supply that came with
the USB dongle external to the system.
The disk imaging is a good route to pursue, as windows 3.1 will run
under vmware if you wish to do so. And it can run quite well with some
driver work. Since it was a pile of stuff on top of Dos, you can play
with the drivers quite a lot and not mess up the system.
Jim
10:56 p.m.
On 01/13/2015 12:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It is
a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by attaching it
to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7,
didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't
fit on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to start
WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
Got another DOS machine? Boot both from floppy; use Laplink or
Interlink to transfer your files.
You could also try a comms package to transfer data via serial cable
(e.g. try Procomm).
If the original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once did
a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports (and an utterly
incompatible with anything floppy setup) by bit banging an LED on the
console and picking the bits up with a phototransistor connected to some
parallel port pins.
--Chuck
11:01 p.m.
If the original machine boots, there are many
possibilities. I once
did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports (and an
utterly incompatible with anything floppy setup) by bit banging an LED
on the console and picking the bits up with a phototransistor connected
to some parallel port pins.
Chuck,
I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that method... Of
course if the data is valuable enough...
11:29 p.m.
If the
original machine boots, there are many possibilities. I once
did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...])
by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a
phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins.
I hate to think how long it
would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that $
14 Jan
14 Jan
12:04 a.m.
Depending on the BIOS, you could attach a drive with an IDE (host
facing) to SATA connector and a small drive to the system. This
probably would have to go to a second IDE port, so both could be
independent of each other.
Image the 420mb drive to the SATA drive, and remove it.
Jim
On 1/13/2015 3:29 PM, Mouse wrote:
Don't forget, with a
technique like that there is no need to limit it
to (eg) serial-port speeds; the limitations will be the software on
each end, the response time of the LED, and the response time of the
phototransistor; these might well permit megabit-plus rates.
420MB at one megabit, unrealistically assuming no framing or error
loss (ECC, retransmit, whatever), is under an hour. Cut the speed to
100Kb and double the data for framing and error loss, and my
calculation says 19.57+ hours, still less than a day.
I don't know about the original poster, but I wouldn't consider that
out of the question at all.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
If the original machine boots, there are many
possibilities. I once
did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...])
by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a
phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins.
I hate to think how long it
would take to transfer a 400MB drive using that $
12:17 a.m.
What about using a CF Card adaptor and CF Card? Would that work?
Alternatively stick an ISA network card in the machine (NE2000 clone
preferably, and I think some of these come with 10BaseT) and then boot the
DOS TCP/IP client. If the machine will boot from floppy it is also possible
to make a bootable GHOST disk that will make a ghost image over the network.
Failing that you could use the KA9Q TCP/IP software and FTP the files
across.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of jwsmobile
Sent: 14 January 2015 00:05
To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts
Subject: Re: Recovering Win3.1 Data
Depending on the BIOS, you could attach a drive with an IDE (host
facing) to SATA connector and a small drive to the system. This probably
would have to go to a second IDE port, so both could be independent of each
other.
Image the 420mb drive to the SATA drive, and remove it.
Jim
On 1/13/2015 3:29 PM, Mouse wrote:
Don't forget, with a technique like that there is no need to
limit it
to (eg) serial-port speeds; the limitations will be the software on
each end, the response time of the LED, and the response time of the
phototransistor; these might well permit megabit-plus rates.
420MB at one megabit, unrealistically assuming no framing or error
loss (ECC, retransmit, whatever), is under an hour. Cut the speed to
100Kb and double the data for framing and error loss, and my
calculation says 19.57+ hours, still less than a day.
I don't know about the original poster, but I wouldn't consider that
out of the question at all.
/~\ The ASCII Mouse
\ / Ribbon Campaign
X Against HTML mouse at rodents-montreal.org
/ \ Email! 7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39 4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B
If the original machine boots, there are many
possibilities. I once
did a linkup with a system with NO serial or parallel ports ([...])
by bit banging an LED on the console and picking the bits up with a
phototransistor connected to some parallel port pins.
I hate to think how long it
would take to transfer a 400MB drive
using that $
12:24 a.m.
On 01/13/2015 03:01 PM, Ali wrote:
I hate to think how long it would take to transfer a
400MB drive using that method... Of course if the data is valuable enough...
ZIP-ing the data up helps.
Start it up, go to bed. If you use a parallel LL cable (I've got a
carton full of them, if anyone needs one), it goes much faster.
Or use a ZIP drive, if you've got one; if you've got a CD burner, do it
that way.
You get the idea. Skinning cats and such... :)
--Chuck
2:52 a.m.
On 01/13/2015 02:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote:
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer that
ran
Windows for workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone,
but I saved the disk. It is a 420 MB Conner. I recently
tried to recover the data by attaching it to one of those
IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it under Windows7, didn't
work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to
save won't fit on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it
tries to start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing
sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any
help?
Yes, Linux will be able to easily read the disk. Once you
have a Linux system up,
plug in the drive. it MIGHT automatically mount the drive as
/media/<something> or you might have to manually mount it
if it doesn't automatically detect the file system type.
the commands would be something like :
If you don't know what partition is the user data one, do this:
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
<supply user's password>
p
lists out the partitions on the drive, and the file system types
q <get out of fdisk before you hit the wrong key and cause
data loss>
/dev/sdb would be the second drive on the system, which
could be the CD,
if so, the added drive might be /dev/sdc
ls /dev/sd* will show the various drives as /dev/sd<letter>
and available partitions as /dev/sd<letter><number>
mkdir /mnt/disk
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sd<letter><number> /mnt/disk
now, the disk should be mounted under /mnt/disk, and you can
list it, copy files, etc.
Jon
18 Jan
18 Jan
11:41 p.m.
On 1/13/2015 9:52 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 01/13/2015 02:32 PM, Douglas Taylor wrote:
You guys move a lot faster than I do....
Some of the files I copied to floppy were MS Word files from that era.
My win7 machine wouldn't open them under Office 2007 because the
antivirus (Symmantec) had set a registry bit. Hmm. ..
However, office on the Linux system would open them (Debian).
But, Debian didn't understand the disk. Disk Utility reported it as a
Conner disk but said the size was 2.2 TB.
I thought Debian would be the path of least resistance, back to the
drawing board.
In the mid-90's I had a Packard Bell computer
that ran Windows for
workgroups 3.11. The computer is long gone, but I saved the disk. It
is a 420 MB Conner. I recently tried to recover the data by
attaching it to one of those IDE/SATA to USB devices and read it
under Windows7, didn't work.
I am able to copy files to floppy, but the stuff I want to save won't
fit on a floppy.
I put the disk in an old PC and it will boot to DOS, it tries to
start WIN3.1 but exits because of some missing sound card hardware.
What is the path of least resistance here? Is linux any help?
Yes, Linux will be able to easily read the disk. Once you have a
Linux system up,
plug in the drive. it MIGHT automatically mount the drive as
/media/<something> or you might have to manually mount it
if it doesn't automatically detect the file system type.
the commands would be something like :
If you don't know what partition is the user data one, do this:
sudo fdisk /dev/sdb
<supply user's password>
p
lists out the partitions on the drive, and the file system types
q <get out of fdisk before you hit the wrong key and cause data loss>
/dev/sdb would be the second drive on the system, which could be the CD,
if so, the added drive might be /dev/sdc
ls /dev/sd* will show the various drives as /dev/sd<letter>
and available partitions as /dev/sd<letter><number>
mkdir /mnt/disk
sudo mount -t msdos /dev/sd<letter><number> /mnt/disk
now, the disk should be mounted under /mnt/disk, and you can
list it, copy files, etc.
Jon
3633
days inactive
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days old
18 comments
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cclist＠sydex.com -
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dj.taylor4＠verizon.net -
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geneb＠deltasoft.com -
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tothwolf＠concentric.net