Legacy DOS program capability preservation

[NC Cams]

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

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

I'm in need of a couple of things:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks

[CountZero]

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

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

[CountZero]

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

[Bubba]

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

[Al_The_Man]

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

[NC Cams]

Re: use of large HDD's reformatted small =

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Willbird]

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

Bill

[HuFlungDung]

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

[kochevnik]

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

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

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

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

[Willbird]

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

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

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

This place seems to have tons of refurbs

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

[NC Cams]

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

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

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

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

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

[Willbird]

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

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


Bill