need old computer help

[Soundguy]

I have some old 'legacy' computers laying around the office, tucked in corners. Many with usefull data or programs on them that get used every 1-2 years. old stuff.. mainly 'dos' related.. stuff that won't run under windows.

On one of the old machines, it's bios didn't support LBA hard drives.. so when it recieved hard drive upgrades back in? 2000 or so.. I had to use one of those floppy disc's that came with the drive in order to set it up.

It added a 'dynamic drive overlay' to the drive, and then you told the bios that it was a type 1 hard drive.

In any case, the primary HDD has failed, but i would still like to get data off the slave hdd. it was also setup using the dynamic drive overlay... I'm at a loss as how to retrieve data from these drives. I don't think simply dropping them into a new system will work, due to they way that had been setup under that software driver.

Any ideas? Anyone have a way to get that software driver? They are western digital drives ( ide.. err.. probably eide...if I didn't mention it before..)


I checked WD archive software.. and that program is not listed.. or at least.. I'm not seeing it.

I also posted a question in the WD technical support EIDE forum...

thanks

Soundguy

 

[hudr]

I remember the EZBIOS days. software solution to a hardware problem. And it was OK as long as nothing came loose, but woe unto you if anything SNAFU'd.
I can't remember if I have done this w/ an overlaid drive, but I keep an external USB HDD enclosure disassembled just so I can take customers' old HDDs, plug them into the external controller and hook them up via USB to extract data. Like I say, I can't remember if I have ever done it on overlaid drives. But, data *SHOULD* be data, right?

 

[Soundguy]

I have a couple H45 drive enclosures.. one is usb.. the other is parallel port. I'm not sure if an overlayed drive will work, as the overlay is read from the boot sector at bootup, and an external hdd in one of those enclosures will not be a boot drive.

However.. i think i found some help.

Wd , in thier archive section, still has a HDD tool, version 11.. and it is suposed to contain the old program to install the drive overlay. I'm downloading it now to make the 'recovery disk'.

Boy.. I had to whip out my USB floppy drive just to do this... none of the other pc's inthe office have floppy drives anymore!

Pretty soon.. all the old dinosaur hardware is going to be permanently obsolete as it will have no means of data entry!!!

thanks for the ideas.

( boy... those old computers were neat back in the day... so many ways to expand the 'limitations. first 2 hdd's.. then a special controller card on another irq to get 2 more hdd's.. then a 3rd controller card for 2 more.. then external parallel port hdd.. etc. .. Today's stuff is m-u-c-h easier! )

Soundguy

 

[MossRoad]

It can't hurt to take that drive and put it into a modern PC to see if it recognizes it and see if you can see the data.

We used that western digital software on a few PCs, but its been a few years since we did. It came on a floppy with all new WD drives, as I recall.

 

[Soundguy]

My only 'fear' is that the drive overlay program made special cluster size options that may not be standard.. thus less likely hood of a new pc autodetecting it. Especially since it was not fdisk'ed by dos.. but rather by the WD software, and you have to tell the bios it is a type 1 drive.

in any case.. tonight I will expirement with the wd software i downloaded.

Hopefully the data is still intact on both drives, even though the master is not bootable.. hopefully it is just a boot sector error.. if so.. I'll swap the drives around and make the other the master, and 'sys' it so it can boot, and use the driver overlay, then copy the daya off... Oh boy.. what fun.

i may have to find my copy of 'guest' and hook my zip drive up to it's parallel port and backup on zip. 8 250's should back up 100% o fthe data.. glad they are only 1 gig drives..

Soundguy

 

[Dargo]

I've pried apart all my old hard drives to get the magnets out of them. Man, have you ever used one of those?! You can hold about 40 sheets of paper or more to the side of something made of steel. If I stick one of those magnets on one of my safes, you cannot pull it off without sliding it to a corner. It kind of makes you wonder...were you not told to keep your data away from magnets?!

If you can't get your data, the guy I sold my old computer business to still deals with a lot of old stuff and I'm sure he likely has a way to get the data. I've been out of it for about 7 years now. Windows 98 was new when I sold out.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. w98 was when i got out of my 'hands on' computer work. Up unitll then i was on the cutting edge of hardware and software.. now.. a few years goes by and now everything i know is virtually obsolete.

Soundguy

 

[BamaRob]

If it were me, I'd use a Live Linux CD (there are lots available; Ubuntu is my favorite). If the machine's bios is capable of booting from a CD, go for it. If not, plug the HDD into a newer machine and boot from the CD. You should then be able to mount the HDD from the Linux Live session and copy files to another mounted HDD or to a USB device (HDD or stick). If you need to run DOS programs, they'll likely work under one of the DOS emulators available in Linux.

You can download ISO images to make your own Live Linux CD, or Ubuntu will ship you one (or more) for free.

Good luck and keep us posted. If you decide to go the Live Linux CD route, I'll be happy to help where I can.

BamaRob

 

[Soundguy]

Dude.. this is an old DOS machine.. very early 486 ( amd 486-40 ) era.. and has no cd player.. like I said.. OLD iron.

But thanks for the sugestions.

Soundguy

 

[dmccarty]

And believe it or not drive magnets is also tractor related.

One of our lab guys had a huge Chunk O Magnet. I *** THINK *** it came out of an old mainframe DASD unit. The chunk I got is roughly 6"x2"x3".

I put it under the PTO shaft on the tractor. Its PERFECT for holding pins and such when changing implements around. Tain't going anywhere with that monster magnet!

Later,
Dan