Extracting data from old hard drives

[shedlord2]

I've been asked to retrieve the data from a very old 'server' running Netware 4.11. This 'server' is made up of 4 IDE disks and serves to a group of old applemacs via an appletalk module in Netware.

Anyway, I don't have much experience of this kind of thing but thought I could pop each disk in turn into an external hard drive box I have handy, plug this into a PC and see/copy files across.

The results were as follows:

Two of these drives don't seem to get picked up at all when I do this (ie. no device is detected at the other end of the USB cable). Tried switching between master/slave jumper settings but no change.

One is seen but doesn't get allocated a drive letter. I followed some instructions for manually allocating a drive letter but I wasn't allowed to open the resulting drive.

One drive mounts but only seems to have a load of Netware system files on - none of the databases and files shared seem to be on there (or are they hidden somehow?)

I'm sure there's something wrong with my method, possibly the using of a USB external drive case?

Any suggestions how I can do this? Thanks

 

[G0AOZ]

It might be worth opening up the computer case and attaching each IDE drive in turn to your secondary IDE interface. Temporarily disconnect any CD or DVD attached to that interface. That ought to eliminate any possible USB incompatibilities.

Windows Disk Management should hopefully then allow you to see the partition(s) on each drive.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[Freestone]

It's been a long time since I've seen Netware, but even if Windows sees the partitions, what can it do with them? Didn't/doesn't Novell use their own filesystem? With the exception of the DOS boot files necessary to get Netware started, I don't think other files will be accessible as they will be in Netware volumes.

I think to get data off, you will have to place these four IDE drives back into a system and get Novell booted again.

 

[shedlord2]

Yup, that's what I found. Windows sees the drive, it has 3 partitions, one I can access but only contains Netware system files, one is 'unallocated' and the third shows up as 'novell 386 netware' when looking at the drive via GetDataBack.

If I need to put them all back and get netware going again then I'm a bit stuck, because Netware (4.11) goes down with 'Abend' or 'Multiple Abend' errors minutes or seconds after being booted. Basically, I can't get any kind of stable connection via the network.

 

[shedlord2]

Forgot to mention, the 'novell 386 netware' partition is inaccessible, as Freestone says.

 

[Freestone]

There is a Novell: NetWare 4 Forum here: forum57

Maybe more help can be found there, especially with the abends.