Windows 3.1 1

[UKalliance]

Hi all,

Appreciate your time on this....

Right then, I have a customer who has a machine they use for invoices etc etc than is running windows 3.1. The PC is becoming a concern as it is grinding to a halt. They have a spare PC ready to take its place.

Now here is the tricky bit, the windows 3.1 machine runs an application that they do not have the install files for, although there is a file call install.bat in the program folder. that could be the required file. What we do need to do though is backup the data. There are no USB ports or CD/DVD drives on this machine. I don't think that it has a network port either. They have already tried to backup to floppy but it is taking too many and too long to carry out.

What I guess I'm asking is what is the best way to tackle this problem? Put a network card in and running a crossover cable and back the drive up to another machine? I've no knowledge of windows 3.1 networking technology.

Again, I am open to all suggestions.

Thanks

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The Collective known as
The UK Alliance
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[rvnguy]

Not sure what is meant by 'grinding to a halt'...

I would, soon, take the HD(s) out of this machine to make a clone onto another HD(you can do this on another PC) with either your favorite imaging app or one of the drive mfg utilities.

This will net you a HD that is a mirror image of the original with OS, applications & all data. As you are most likely a consultant or??? You should have spares that you could also produce a third clone.

I would then replace the original drive into the orig PC.

Take the 3rd clone, and in another PC set as boot drive and attempt to upgrade to w98. wME, w2K, or what ever newer than w3.1 you might have available. Check that after upgrade, the app in question still functions...

Then depending on the customer requirements proceed from here...

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[mainegeek]

They have a spare PC ready to take its place"

Is this one old too?
Does it already have an OS installed on it?

 

[edfair]

1) Clone it with ghost.
2) Network it with a DOS networking package
3) Laplink through the parallel ports

There are used machines available in the resale shops that will duplicate the install without problems and plenty of used smaller drives that will partition to what DOS needs.
But I would put a CD on whatever machine you end up with. Makes it a lot easier to install stuff if you have that capability.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[BOKA]

This is if you/they are planning to stay with Win31.

The main difference between 2 PCs, from Win31 standpoint, is video driver and sound driver (if present). There could be something else, but 95% of systems from my experience differ with these 2 items. So, the easiest path to take is to image the drive and try using the new drive in the new PC.

Here are general steps:

1. Get 2 harddrives ( good idea, rvnguy! ), and make 2 images of the original drive from that old PC. If you do not have Ghost, there are free utilities available
( take a look here for example:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/hdclonefree.html

)

2. Put away one of the new drives - that is your backup.

3. Make sure you have a Win31 video driver for the new PC as well as new sound driver.

4. Take the other new drive, plug it into the old system, go into Windows Setup and change video driver to VGA. Uninstall sound driver if applicable.

5. Move this new drive into the new system, boot it. You may get one or more error messages on Windows startup - disregard if they are sound related.

6. Go into Windows Setup and install new video driver. Also install new sound driver, if applicable.

Done.

Note: these are generic steps, which will work most of the time. Your milage may vary. But, the worst case scenario - you will just end up where you were - with working (still) old system and good backup. Then you can try going with more involved solution, such as Laplink and DOS or Windows networking.

Good luck.

 

[edfair]

You could also consider a dual boot of the underlying DOS and something like 98SE. That would give you the capability of running the 3.1 but with a possible backup onto a CDRW running under the 98.
With the DOS side you could have the 3.1. No conflicts as long as you install the windows to different directories and both have that capability.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[dglienna]

Do you have an outline for doing that? I haven't done DOS for a few decades, and remember that you could duel-boot windows and dos, but forgot how.

The other problem is large drives. If you format with DOS, you can have 2g's, with W95, 6g's or so. W98 allows large drives.

I'm not sure that if you format something larger than DOS sees, whether or not it can read the primary data anymore.

Haven't had a lot of luck testing it. We cloned two DOS apps under W98, but haven't been able to get the exact sequence of TYPE APPNAME TO RUN DOS, EXIT, START WINDOWS in the autoexec file. Windows doesn't halt for the DOS app.

-David
2006 Microsoft Valueable Professional (MVP)
2006 Dell Certified System Professional (CSP)

 

[edfair]

Fdisk w/6.22 as large as it goes. reboot format c: /s then fdisk the remainder as extended and allow it to assign the logicals. reboot and let DOS install overwriting the existing. That will take care of formatting everything else.
Get you DOS stuff set up correctly and running to your satisfaction. I get the CD up and running on DOS and put the 98 install stuff on the C:. Then rename the autoexec and config files to something else (keeps stuff from carrying forward into 98) and move to the 98 install and start it up to put the 98 on the D:
The boot is controlled by MSDOS.SYS on the C:. Edit it for bootmenu=1 and you have the choice up front. Rename the config and autoexec back to their original names and you will have your DOS/3.1 as one choice and 98 as the other.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[dglienna]

Thanks. I'll try that next week. Have a star!

-David
2006 Microsoft Valueable Professional (MVP)
2006 Dell Certified System Professional (CSP)

 

[UKalliance]

well blow me down with a feather. Thanks for all the replies. I have primed the machine ready to clone the disk, so will be going to the site tomorrow. will let you know how I get on. Just hope the disk doesn't crash half way through the clone process

________________________________________

The Collective known as
The UK Alliance
________________________________________