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

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...

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

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!

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.

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)....

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

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?

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.

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%20DRIVES/ATA%20-%20IDE/6GB-5400RPM

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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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

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.

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....

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

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.php?PageTag=&page=file&memx_menu=EmbedProductDetail.php&DisplayProductID=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.

:)

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....

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.

" 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.

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.

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.

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/easyrecoveryprofessional/

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.

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.

PMINMO

What's a CF?

Thanks

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?????

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

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

I thought win98 used DOS 7 ??

Bill

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--

..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..??

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.

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.....

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

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.

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]

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.

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

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

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.

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....

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 believeI said upgrade the control system. Then you would not need this old computer system/program.

This is not helping so let try something that might be
have you tried
http://www.kamcom.com/
http://www.4drives.com/index.htm
http://www.sunstarco.com/Hard%20Drive%20Inf/Western%20Digital/wd_.htm

Ron22: My business is predicated upon the use of the design and analysis software that runs on a DOS/Win 3.11 system.

If I want to spend a small fortune I can update SOME of the software however, one particular piece of software is categorically un-upgradeable to a new/contemporary system (IE: XP).

It is cheaper to find/buy a lifetime supply of legacy hardware to support my business efforts until my days come to an end. The inconvenience is becoming a drag, however....

I can "upgrade the control" system to pretty much ANYTHING as long as it will run DOS 5 thru 6.22 and Win 3/3.11.

These O/S's dictate what sort of HDD's and computer systems that can be run.

I will check out the suggested links, thanks.

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...)

You can't... Basically you have to use New old stock if you can find any or just plain old drives.

But you can migrate even if its not easy..

In fact you haven't said but at the age you seem to be talking about they might even be MFM or RLL drives....

Are they IDE?

Garry


(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.


gg

Yes, the machines involved are all IDE.

Pentium's, MMX's, Pentium 133, 233, 266 and/or 333's. Pretty much all of them have ISA slots due to data acquisition card issues - another issue that I have to take into consideration.

Minimum cost to upgrade to PCI based system is $5K for hardware and a multiples of that for software - this is why I keep the DOS alive, simple economics and the fact that new software won't do ANYTHING better than the DOS stuff does.

New issue with Partition Magic - the latest version 8 is pretty much for XP and it doesn't indicate DOS compatibilty anymore nor compatability with anything LESS than Win 98SE.

Last month I was in Sydney and I heard of (long story) a PC shop that had 486 based machines for sale - new!!! Yup they were still in their shiny new boxes. I remembered your networking problem from a while back and checked it out (it was on the way to the airport). They didn't have any (of course) but I did notice a lot of old hard disks, old as in year of manufacture, but new in boxes (bags). I will make some calls.

A quick and dirty dual boot for win98/DOS is to keep pressing F8 at boot, this will give you a selection menu that you can select command mode only. I use this for my machine controller PC to get files on fairly easily, boot in Win98 copy the files via multisession CD ROM (you get a few writes of small files doing this) just don't close the CD when writing. Reboot and do the machine into DOS (as described) and load the file as needed, I use TurboCNC and keep the file location pretty simple, the root directory.

This workes a treat for me, I tried running the machine in dos mode in win98 and lets just say things got a little funky. (only tried that once)

I will let you know if I find any "new" 4gig HDD's

Russell.

ok, ive got to this thread quite late, but can i make a suggestion.

If your dos software does not need to directly access hardware, as in its not a machine controller, there is an option that hasnt been discussed yet. You could use software such as vmware or ms virtual pc to 'simulate' a computer, and install your old software and version of dos on the virtual pc.

The benefit of doing this is although the virtual pc still runs legacy dos, the software runs inside of a modern windows pc, and so is upgradable. The speed of modern computers more then makes up for the speed loss of emulating, and vmware is pretty good with dos packages.

It may not work, but vmware has a free 30 day trial, and for the sake of copying your files off the old hdd and giving it a try, as your problems are solved if it works.

The reason everyone here is pushing for you to get off your legacy hardware is that although 4 years back such parts were relatively easy to find, now you have to scrounge surplus yards for hdds in the size you need. Now in another 5 years, when you need to swap out again, you will find things even more difficult. If you can get the data onto a modern system, then your life becomes a lot easier for making backups and replacing parts.

If done properly, a dual boot (Win98/DOS) option will come up automatically - the guy who did my laptop figured that out and I've recently verified that my lame ass yesteryear albeit critical software works on a 98SE/DOS duel booted system.

Epineh: I'll like to try to find some HDD"s here in the states before I look into importing them. I"ve gotten some lines on "legacy" parts that I haven't checked out yet. Thanks for the info anyway....

I just haven't figured out how he did it.

The dual boot deal solves a major problem - the only issue now is to find a source for NEW, suitably sized HDD's. And, if I do find a source, you can bet that I'll buy a lifetime supply - this thread proves that it is better to be looking AT the damn things that to be looking FOR them.

If done properly, a dual boot (Win98/DOS) option will come up automatically - the guy who did my laptop figured that out and I've recently verified that my lame ass yesteryear albeit critical software works on a 98SE/DOS duel booted system.

Epineh: I'll like to try to find some HDD"s here in the states before I look into importing them. I"ve gotten some lines on "legacy" parts that I haven't checked out yet. Thanks for the info anyway....

I just haven't figured out how he did it.

The dual boot deal solves a major problem - the only issue now is to find a source for NEW, suitably sized HDD's. And, if I do find a source, you can bet that I'll buy a lifetime supply - this thread proves that it is better to be looking AT the damn things that to be looking FOR them.


Well I can't do a WIN98/dos dual boot in 6 easy words but I could do it very easily. However there is no reason to give my IP away either.

However I will give you a solution that is almost as good and is dead easy if you chose to try it..

On a functioning Win 98 system, edit the msdos.sys file.

What you are looking for is the statement that tells you if you want a GUI interface or a dos prompt. The line will be the BootGUI line.

[Options]
BootMulti=1
BootGUI=0
DoubleBuffer=1

If it is a 0 you will boot to "real DOS"
If it is a 1 it will boot to Windows.

Use a simple (Not Word) editior to set it as you chose. Notepad works well.

If you set to a "0" and boot to a dos prompt then you can type win at most any prompt to get to Windows.

This file will most likely be read only and you will have to use properties to remove that limitation. I would set it again after you are done.

It would be pretty simple to make this a choice...but there is no real reason to as typing win is already pretty simple...

If you want to persue this then Google is your friend..


And if you go to newer pc with bigger drives all newer OS from MS are simple to set up to boot backwards to older OS and then the bios limitation isn't an issue..

Google is yur friend here also.


I am not sure where you are getting you limitations from as this is a very old system I am using that came with 98(an Emachine) and it came with a 12 gig drive..

If you get smaller drives then get a copy of spinwrite and exercise them. If they are getting close to failure then it will let you know. I would trust a used drive that I have ran spinwrite on as much as any new old stock drive that has been sitting around.

Garry

Have a look at the TurboCNC manual, scroll down to the end, it tells you how to create a dual boot Win98/Dos selection at startup. I didn't post it here as it is a little long winded, which is why I just use F8 at startup and choose.

Russell.

Here is the technique to get the drive size that you need.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/8_4/index.html

This will solve the last of your remaning issues. I sure othe drive manufacturers have similar software for use with their drives

I re-scanned the total thread and everything that you need has been posted. There are several different good approaches and they all will work.

The only thing left is for you to pick one approach and get on with it.
:cheers:


Daedalus

The DOS software plays with the hardware. Virtual PC, which is a neat concept, won't work in this case.

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 believe he said to plug your failing drives into a new PC and copy the files hard drive to hard drive. Once copird, put them back in the old PC's.

Hi NC, sounds like there's some confusion on what's what. As a sad old sod who thought DOS 5 was a huge leap forward I can add some info, or add to the confusion. I'll let you decide which!

When you say you have a DOS app that requires to run on DOS with a HD supported on the MB and DOS version you have, you've got something that uses ISA as an input/output with hardcoded card support? Similarly there could be some custom i/o? (disk writes/reads directly from the application to the drive?) That was a fairly common practice way back when.

You have a couple of limitations with drives;

DOS came with fdisk, the program which could create a partition on the drive which i know you;re familiar with. The maximum disk size depends on Fdisk version however and NOT DOS OS version. Early Fdisk versions with dos suppported 525mb, then 2.1, 4.2 and 8.4gb in 6.22, but partitions of only 2 or 4gb depending on version.... again note thats the Fdisk version and NOT a DOS limitation. Its all about how the hardware addresses the drive and how and what boot MBR, FAT or partition tables are written. Dos will read a fat 12, 16 table just fine. You can add fat32 support. You can use an NT or win98 version boot diskette and partition the drive to Fat32 8.4gb and dos 6.22 will read it fine depending on version if the hardware and fdisk will present the drive in an acceptable format.

The harddrive size is first supported by the DOS-bios on the MB. Note thats NOT the DOS OS. DOS-bios is now just BIOS and loads the mb on startup. The hard disk drive must be supported by the computer's ROM BIOS APIs, which have a 1024-cylinder limitation, in order for FDISK to partition the hard disk. If your MB is an early board and bios & IDE adapters doesn't support LBA then you're stuck with the IDE onboard limited to a max of 8.4 as I think you've already discovered, or get the LBA drive to appear as non LBA - 1024cyl max. A modern high capacity LBA IDE drive can still be partitioned into up to 24 seperate partitions that dos will recognise if it can be presented as a non LBA drive.

You can in theory upgrade bios to support LBA and I'm assuming you've tried that and not found a bios to suite. I know I couldn't when I tried the same thing.

You can put fat32 support into dos 6.22 along with long filename support and
address modern disks - as long as the hardware ide bios spi will support it.

You can dump the onboard MB bios ide limitation entirely and get a third party card IDE adaptercard like an older promise Ultra33 or 66 or Acard ata66. These cards load thier own bios after the MB bios loads and the cards do natively support LBA drives up to 128mb. Your partition limit then becomes what dos will address. Drives can coexist on MB ide and card ide and you can set boot order. FDisk will recognise drives on card natively without drivers as long as the card bios loads. You can define partitions on any new parallel ide drives and dos will recognise them. Any custom i/o to partition will work too. Problem is the cards are PCI so do you have a pci slot as well as ISA? Further Warning; I have this working on a P166 running dos 6.22 & fat32 and TCNC on an 8.4 partition on a new 160gb drive. It took some effort to get the sequence for attachment and fdisk operations for it to work but once done its stable.

You could swap to a newer MB with isa, pci and lba ide support for new drives. A lot of the later PIII slot1 mb's had that . I'm running exactly that on an abit mb for a server.

Newer drives are often available with a bios routine thats loaded on the drive to appear as an older non LBA drive - 1024cyls. Maxtor. seagate and WD have this available as part of the retail package and its downloadable from thier support sites. It does work but I've had inconsistant results with it.

To backup I'd be very careful. Any attempt to load new software on an older failing drive could possibly damage your data as I'm sure you know. Any attempt to remove stuff or add drives to a old established working machine can cause it to not play anymore. So any attempt to add new tape drive, DOS cd rom burning or what ever would be inadvisable. I'd go with Ger's suggestion to carefully remove the drive and add it into another machine and take a backup on a different machine. Safest way, and assume you've got to start from scratch and 'rebuild' the thing again.

There are some free dos cd burner programs but they come and go and I don't have a link to one right now.

I would NOT suggest using disk caddies for ide drives for backup as they DO blow drives unless the power is entirely off the machine, that is not just switched off but unplugged from the wall or whatever. they are not hot plug or even warm plug.

If you've got real i/o to disk or isa card you cannot run your app under xp, win98, VMware, linux emulation or whatever...

CF / Compact flash to ide adapters ONLY work if they are used as a read only device or for very limited writes in a pc. The write cycle life is about 200k. Win98 could do that number of writes in a weeks use...... The IDE mapping wouldn't necessarily map id custom i/o to ide is coded in the app.

Finally I use some of these; http://www.memorydepot.com/details.asp?id=DOM1GV40. Expensive, yes. reliable. yes. Have some running as boot disk on a communications server for four years. Write cycle time was rated as 3m, I 've exceeded that many times over and they still test clean. Totally compatible with older DOS/ IDE 40 pin interfaces. They might be a band aid but a better option than 'refurbished' drives...

Andrew

Had a thought this am. You can network DOS machines quite easily, it was done. Look for Lan Manager from MS for ethernet cards or IBM's Lan Server for token ring. Once installed it will allow a one way or two way 'share' of one disk from another machine. Add a quick .bat routine you can automate the movement of copys for backup... I might still have lan manager somewhere back home...

Fyffe: there are several machines involved but they all run the same software.

The cam measuring machine uses a special Heidenhain card to read linear and rotary encoder signals to "read the cam". This card runs in an ISA slot. It is hardlock linked to/with software via either parallel port dongle or an ISA card that plugs in.

The guy who wrote the software learned the hard way that XP wouldn't work with the original cam measuring hardware and/or the software because of the (lack of) support that XP provided via parallel port as opposed to what DOS provided - recall that he was using a parallel port dongle.

Besides, the cam design and analysis software does some fancy memory swapping - the program was developed BEFORE they had HIMEM managers and the program categorically won't run/load high.

So, no matter how much memory you have, you're only using the 640K limit - thus, you have to be REAL careful when you start loading/using other software and/or especially Win 3 programs (where my dynamics analysis programs reside).

It is real easy to get NOTHING to work because you run out of memory or something uses someone else's memory alottment. After many "what the frock??" moments, we simply built "dedicated" DOS machines and left well enough alone.

After weeks of trying and numerous WTF's over the years, we learned that ANYTHING BUT DOS 6.22 in concert with a carefully configured Win 3.11 system will cause you unfathomable grief.

This software is so sensitive (dare I say primitive) that we've even had M/B's with certain chip sets not work with it. It is quite simply easier to find what works and use ONLY that configuration. Better that than to mess with interrupts, memory mapping and goodness knows that else we've screwed to get the programs to run in a stable fashion.

Which is why we want/need/will only make a dedicated, carefully configured DOS machine with Win 3.11 for this particular system. This is also why we seriously try to avoid add-on cards and other gingerbread - it is too easy to add something and then have NOTHING work for no viable reason.

BTW, a lan card was tried and the memory it allocated to/for its use created havoc with the cam software so we had to abandon it.

This was why we had hoped to be able to at least get a CDROM burner to work somehow - simply burning data to disks for B/U, as much of a PITA and or expense that it can be, is easier/safer to do than to deal with the alternative created by dated, unforgivingly written DOS software.

BTW: I've recently learned that I can get "updated" cam design and analysis software. HOWEVER, I'll need to buy new Heidenhain PCI based cards, new software and all new PC's and convert to XP - to convert to "contemporary" XP based software that will only set me back close to $15K.

An expenditure that I simply can't justify spending in order to do NOTHING technially better than what I can do with lame a$$ yesteryear DOS software.

But I would have MARVELOUS graphics - for a simple, albeit static graph on a screen, hardly something I can justify spending that kind of $$$'s on for so little merit.

Hmmm. Perhaps this is a summer project for a college student.

Get a board to interface to the disk port on the ISA controller. Mesa makes a generic FPGA board that should be fine. That's a PCI board that you can put into another machine (running linux, or XP, or whatever). The board is about $200 in qty one.

Then write an IDEdisk emulator that gets the commands from the IDE channel and converts them to reads and writes on the second system.

Unless the DOS system is very sensitive to timing, this should work just fine.

It would actually be a pretty neat little project. I'll be you could sell a few of them.

(I know, this isn't the type of answer you are looking for. But if you have a friend at some local college, it should be doable as a summer project for some student.)

Ken

WIth all due respect and with tongue firmly in cheek, when someone says:

"...Then write an IDEdisk emulator that gets the commands from the IDE channel and converts them to reads and writes on the second system...."

My eyes glaze over. I'm not into programming which is why I got into making camshafts. The computer programs that I use came about as a GUI based version of a technogeek/technobabbly PC adaptation of what used to take a frigging mainframe to calculate.

I see the same look developing in peoples faces when I start taking 5th order polynomial exponent coefficients and ramp junction factors when I start talking cam design stuff. Not only do the eyes glaze over but they literally roll back into the client's heads.

My clients want a camshaft made that will make more power and not tear up vavletrains. It can be simple to create something like that when you know how - if not, guys create garbage and broken pieces with a trail of carnage. I simply create techno-garbage when I try to program a PC - classic case of "right guy for right job".

I have a legacy system. It works. It works the same DOS 5 as it does in the latest XP varuabt BUT at far less cost and/or complexity.

Sadly, it doesn't need anything more complicated than ISA and 4-6 gig of HDD to run. Hell, it will run as well and/or as accurately on a 486 as well as on a Pentium 333. All I need is some new "old" HDD's and I'll be good for, at the rate things are going, the rest of my career.

The ONLY reason why computers got to be SO popular and SO pervasive in our society is that Jobs, Gates et al figured out how to make them useable WITHOUT having to have a college degree. Point and click, plug and pray. For that, they are to be commended.

For their inability to make it simple and needing of a computer science PHD to understand how to program the damn things, they need to be shot. How could someone be SO brilliant in one stretch of the adaptation scenario and so irresponsible and/or undisciplined in others???

Simply too much time is spent innovating to obsolete today's parts tomorrow and not enough thought to maintaining interoperability with legacy systems over time.

I contend that some legacy stuff is quite adequate even though it may contain yesteryear technology.

Imagine what would have happened to our phone, TV and AM/FM radio systems if the prior systems had gone obsolete every 3-5 years or so???

Or what would happen to the cost of air travel if 3 year old planes couldn't fly anymore because the avionics was totally obsoleted (it is but there are ways and folks who still service it, thankfully or else the Defense Dept budget would be even more astronomically bloated than it is).

Post #50 offered some accute insight into the true sense of the effort so far. Via public and private e-mails, I"ve found the answer to my problem thanks to the plethora of knowlege contained in the minds and shared by a lot of well educated and experienced members of this community.

Thanks to all those who've contributed.

Surely, someone else may/will have a similar need some day.

The following links that got contributed are of specific value to those of us stuck in DOS dome:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/217210/en-us?spid=1131&sid=global

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255867

These helped a bunch. I think I have a line on the hard and software that I need to carry on with my lame ass yesteryear system in a manner that should last for quite some time to come.

Trust me, I learned my lesson about long term DOS system survivalism and I"m making a lifetime buy of my next system "fix".

I know some of the same issues you talk of existed at usgov.org on military installations, because computers and hard drives can with great difficulty go IN, but they never come OUT in operating order for opsec reasons. So they did stuff like adapt 486 cpu's to 386 computers, and other weird stuff. We got some units that were scrap out of wright patterson AFB, the cases were built literally strong enough to park a car on, the power switches were all hot glued in the ON position..the cases were fastened shut with anti-tamper screws, on and on....interesting hardware tho...mostly 386, some had add on ram cards that held 2 megs of ram and each card went into the ISA bus, and the card was as long as an AT mainboard, not a half sized one :-).

there was a flurry of Cobal and other language hiring around y2k to deal with that issue on legacy DOS stuff like you have NC, and for much the same reasons.

Bill