Author Topic: Tech nickle help. Very old computer to new. (Read 3815 times)

Myself · « **on:** May 24, 2010, 04:42:15 PM »

I offered to help our church treasurer transfer her files from her old computer to a new Dell. I showed up with floppies, blank cd roms and a flash drive. The old computer is 1999 vintage without a burnable cd drive, (has a read only drive). The 3 1/2" drive still works but the new machine has no such animal. There are about 3 gig of data to move.

My thoughts:

1. Copy everything to floppies, bring them home, install them on an old machine here and burn cd's.
2. Take a CD rw out of an old machine here and install it into the win 98 machine there and burn.
3. Try to find a db9 serial cable to usb and setup a machine to machine transfer. The new machine is not currently hooked up as there is "no space" for it.
4. Pull the hard drive from the current machine and install it into something here and make CD's.

She is currently hooked up to a dial up modem so I don't think internet data transfer is viable. The data on the old machine is important not to loose.

Any other ideas?

grislyatoms · « **Reply #1 on:** May 24, 2010, 04:48:35 PM »

3G to floppies is going to take a really, really long time. Like, really long.

I would go with option #4. You can find 5G or so flash drives for really cheap nowadays, no need to burn cds. Sheesh, I even saw smaller flash drives at 7-11 recently.
I picked up a 180G for ~$80 10-12 months ago.

41magsnub · « **Reply #2 on:** May 24, 2010, 05:08:10 PM »

Does the new PC have an ATA 100 IDE port? Some do (for a CD-ROM mostly) and some don't and use a SATA CD-ROM. If so take the HD out of the old PC and put it in the new one. Then copy whatever you want off of the hold HD to the new one, then shut down and take it out.

AJ Dual · « **Reply #3 on:** May 24, 2010, 05:14:25 PM »

Quote from: 41magsnub on May 24, 2010, 05:08:10 PM

Does the new PC have an ATA 100 IDE port? Some do (for a CD-ROM mostly) and some don't and use a SATA CD-ROM. If so take the HD out of the old PC and put it in the new one. Then copy whatever you want off of the hold HD to the new one, then shut down and take it out.

Yep, USB port, and a thumb drive, hopefully it'll still work with USB 1.0.

Otherwise, see if you can mount the HDD on one of the spare CD-ROM cables in the new PC like the man says. That's going to be the most time saving in terms of transfer speed.

zxcvbob · « **Reply #4 on:** May 24, 2010, 05:15:03 PM »

Does the old computer have an Ethernet port? If so, you can transfer the files over a local network (the local network can be as simple as a crossover patch cable.) If it has a USB port, you can use a flash drive to transfer the files.

Or pull the hard drive out and temporarily install it (as a 2nd drive) in a newer (win 2000 or better) machine that has more connectivity.

lee n. field · « **Reply #5 on:** May 24, 2010, 05:55:58 PM »

Quote

4. Pull the hard drive from the current machine and install it into something here and make CD's.

That.

Or drop a pci network card in, and copy across ethernet.

Windows 98, isn't that old.

230RN · « **Reply #6 on:** May 24, 2010, 06:08:30 PM »

If her machine is that old, it probably has interlnk.exe and intersvr.exe on it. You can download a copy from

http://www.pcxt-micro.com/dos-interlink.html

and various other sources on the new computer.

The interlnk and intersvr utilities work with either the regular RS-232 serial ports or the parallel ports. For the former, you need a null modem cable. For the latter, a regular parallel cable and maybe a gender changer. Transfers can be very quick.

I used to use these utilities every time I changed computers in the old days.

Myself · « **Reply #7 on:** May 24, 2010, 06:11:16 PM »

No ethernet or usb on the old machine. The new computer is a generic Dell. I will have to peek in it to see if I can plug an ata hard drive in some place.

I don't even know if the new Dell has the old ports on it. It is still in the box. Can you go from a serial port to a usb with an adapter?

41magsnub · « **Reply #8 on:** May 24, 2010, 06:30:06 PM »

If you can't stick the old drive in the new machine maybe look at this from NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

It will make the old drive into a USB drive so you can just hook it to the new PC.

Bogie · « **Reply #9 on:** May 24, 2010, 06:33:21 PM »

Yeah, that's what I'd do... Stick the old drive in an enclosure, and hang it off the back of the new machine. Get the data off, nuke that drive (make another CD/DVD backup just to be sure) and teach them how to do a quickie "drag my documents to this shortcut on the desktop" backup.

Ebay sells IDE enclosures CHEAP.

Jim147 · « **Reply #10 on:** May 24, 2010, 06:36:22 PM »

Quote from: 41magsnub on May 24, 2010, 06:30:06 PM

If you can't stick the old drive in the new machine maybe look at this from NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002

It will make the old drive into a USB drive so you can just hook it to the new PC.

That's what I use. It comes in handy to run scans on infected drives too. No geek tool box is complete without one.

jim

Myself · « **Reply #11 on:** May 24, 2010, 07:24:44 PM »

That looks like a slick item. It will also be helpful next time my daughters laptop kicks the bucket. I think I will pick that up.

Bogie · « **Reply #12 on:** May 24, 2010, 08:46:19 PM »

Read the review stuff - you gotta be careful using them... The enclosures are a LOT more idiot-friendly.

go_bang · « **Reply #13 on:** May 24, 2010, 08:51:01 PM »

+1 on connecting the hard drive from the old PC to a USB port on the new one. That will work quite well.

BMacklem · « **Reply #14 on:** May 24, 2010, 08:58:44 PM »

Yeah, either an enclosure, or that transfer cable. We carry those at most of our stores, and they'll do both sata and ide drives, 3.5 or 2.5 sized drives as well, they are a technicians best friend these days.

41magsnub · « **Reply #15 on:** May 24, 2010, 09:02:33 PM »

Now that the question is answered.. I don't get the nickle thing in the title :)

Tallpine · « **Reply #16 on:** May 24, 2010, 09:09:56 PM »

Quote from: 41magsnub on May 24, 2010, 09:02:33 PM

Now that the question is answered.. I don't get the nickle thing in the title :)

Say it out loud: tech nickle

41magsnub · « **Reply #17 on:** May 24, 2010, 09:38:20 PM »

ooooooh

Tallpine · « **Reply #18 on:** May 24, 2010, 09:44:54 PM »

One time - I don't remember the precise circumstances - I had a computer that died and I bought a newer one.

Rather than actually moving the old pc hd over to the new pc, I opened the covers on both, set them close together, and ran the IDE cable over to the hd in the old pc. Sorta like running jumper cables between two cars, or donating blood directly person to person. The old pc power supply still worked, so I fired that much up just to run the hd.

Worked great - I had a Drive E or something, and txf'd a bunch of files over to the new pc.

Hawkmoon · « **Reply #19 on:** May 24, 2010, 11:00:25 PM »

Quote from: Myself on May 24, 2010, 06:11:16 PM

No ethernet or usb on the old machine.

Are you certain? You've looked at the BACK of the case? I still have two Dell Dimension 4100s around here that are old enough they came originally with Windows 95 on them, and they have two USB ports on the back ... nothing on the front.

Perd Hapley · « **Reply #20 on:** May 24, 2010, 11:02:52 PM »

My Dad's Win98 computer had USB on the back, but it didn't know what to make of a flash drive.

Perd Hapley · « **Reply #21 on:** May 24, 2010, 11:05:48 PM »

Quote from: Jim147 on May 24, 2010, 06:36:22 PM

That's what I use. It comes in handy to run scans on infected drives too. No geek tool box is complete without one.

Even a newb like fistful has one of those.

41magsnub · « **Reply #22 on:** May 24, 2010, 11:05:56 PM »

IIRC,and it has been a while, USB support in Windows started with Windows 98 Second Edition though it was flaky as all get out.

sanglant · « **Reply #23 on:** May 25, 2010, 02:09:49 AM »

this one, holds the drive but you still don't have to assemble disable it for every drive. could have sworn i had seen a cheaper one on newegg, but can't now.

edit: forget that one, no sata on a drive that old. going senile sucks.

Myself · « **Reply #24 on:** May 25, 2010, 10:48:40 AM »

Quote

Are you certain? You've looked at the BACK of the case? I still have two Dell Dimension 4100s around here that are old enough they came originally with Windows 95 on them, and they have two USB ports on the back ... nothing on the front.

I even took off my specks and crawled down on the floor to look close, front and back. The eyes ain't what they once were. Gettin old sure sucks.

News:

Author Topic: Tech nickle help. Very old computer to new. (Read 3815 times)