I just fired up my old Windows 98 machine from college and I want to get off a bunch of old files. This computer is three feet from death although it does startup okay. I have about 500mb of files I want to get off the computer. I don't have a LAN I could use to transfer files. The A drive was removed a long time ago anyway 1.44 mb at a time isn't appealing. I tried a USB thumb drive, the computer recognized there was a device attached however it needs a driver.

How can I easily get the files off this old machine?

Just for a luaugh the computer is a Packard Bell (when was the last time you heard that name?)

Easiest way is to hook the hard drive up to a newer machine. Or find a driver for the USB drive and somehow move it over.

You could buy one of these and hook yp your old drive to the USB Port on your new computer.

http://www.cooldrives.com/saandidehadr1.html

It's 29.95, I bought one for use at work and it is a great gadget to have.

Good luck

Or you could open up your new machine and plug the drive in directly, saving yourself $30.

quote Originally posted by Jax184: Or you could open up your new machine and plug the drive in directly, saving yourself $30.

Exactly, just slave the old drive. Use your current machine to access that drive and pull the files over to C: or whatever drive letter is your primary HDD. Might even consider leaving that drive in there for extra storage if it's still OK. Just don't put anything on it you would not mind loosing in case it crashes.

[This message has been edited by tutnkmn (edited 03-06-2007).]

Well I know enough to be dangerous here. I found an old A drive and installed it, I then tried installing the driver for the USC thumb drive but the driver worked for 98 SE or higher. I never updated the ol' machine ot SE so I am SOL. I then tried an external USB harddrive and that wouldn't work either--heck I couldn't even find a driver for that.

So I took the HD out and put it in another old machine I have around which has Windows 2000 and now I get "DISK BOOT FAILURE: INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. I have the cable running from the mother board to the 2000 HD then at the end I have my old 98 drive? How do I properly hook up the 98 drive so it boots on 2000 then I can pull off my files from the 98 HD?

Like I said I know enough to be dangerous.

What brand of drive is it? What model of drive is it? They're all different. If it doesn't have instructions on the end or the top of the drive, you can find the jumper settings in the drive's manual. The major drive makers (Seagate, WD, etc) still have the manuals on the website.

Also, you typicly put the master drive at the end of the cable and the slave drive in the middle.

quote Originally posted by Jeff Smith: You could buy one of these and hook yp your old drive to the USB Port on your new computer. http://www.cooldrives.com/saandidehadr1.html It's 29.95, I bought one for use at work and it is a great gadget to have. Good luck

this is a good idea. external HD's are handy to have.

quote Originally posted by Hank is Here: Apparently I need to change the jumpers on my old HD to be a slave. What do I look for on the HD to see what I need to change the jumper to?

Do you have a CDROM in your new computer? If so, leave it's HDD on it's cable by itself and use take the cable off the CDROM and plug that into the old HDD.

Your new PC is probably set to "Cable Select" and by default the HDD at the end of the calbe will be the primary (MASTER) drive. That's why it's trying to boot off the old drive and giving you an error. If you want to use both drives on one cable, put the old drive on the middle connector instead of the end.

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"Some days you eat the bear. Some days the bear eats you. But, ALWAYS dress for the hunt!"

Does the old machine have a NIC card installed?

You said you didn't have a LAN to transfer, but you didn't say that it wasn't LAN ready.

If you have a NIC card installed, use a "Cross Over" cable between your old PC and your new PC, and share the drive on the old machine.

Then on your new PC, you can search for the old PC's harddrive.

If you have enough drive capacity on your new PC, just create a folder, lets say, called "OLD PC", and just copy all files from the old to the new, into that folder.

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"The PRE10DR"

Like someone said above,, put the 98 drive in as a slave or you could go to plan "B" and connect a LapLink cable from your parallel "printer" ports. Of course you need the software to make it work.

Make sure the software can handle long file names, over eight characters long.