Can I connect the hard drive from my main machine into my laptop via the USB ?

What sort of line is needed ?

 

Easiest way would be to create a local network via the ethernet ports, a cable is only afew quid.
Or via a router if you have wifi, if you are connecting to the net via wifi on the laptop you are halfway there already

 

Other machine runs Win 98

Is that networkable Martyn ?

 

You can do it between XP and 98, but its not half as easy as if both were on XP
On XP you go to My computer/My Network places/Setup a home or small office network. That is pretty straight forward just answering the questions it asked.
I cant help with the 98 side of things though, been years since I used it!

 

I think the graphics card has died in it as its not talking to the screen.

Its the machine that cuts the Pf stickers and im getting a back log of people for them now



Might have to bin it or spend a few hundred quid on it now lol

I can put the software onto the laptop for a while but all the files are on the other hard drive, was just hoping I could plug something into the back of the h/d and drag them out.

 

USB drive caddy and shove the disk in it. Should do the trick.

Bit like this http://www.misco.co.uk/productinform...Enclosure.htm#

Something I am looking at as the laptop's 80gb is getting quite full

 

Or get someone to stick in into their pc and then burn all the files onto a cd

 

Think were getting somewhere with that type of thing

Will have a look round the computer fair tomorrow now.

At the end of the day I still need the thing fixing as running it from the laptop will cause other problems, it dosn't have a serial port

 

Can it not connect via usb instead?
You can buy USB > serial converters

 

Dunno never needed to try it Martyn.

I need it back working on my dedicated machine, so just looking for a temporary fix at the mo to get my backlog sorted. I dont charge for the stickers and even pay the postage myself so will have to tip the piggy bank up higher lol

Not even sure if stuffin a graphics card in it will make it work anymore. Win 98 isn't on many of the boxes in the shops these days

Thanks both

Tony

 

can't you just chuck the data you need onto a USB key ?

plug the spare HDD into another desktop assuming you have one, as a econd drive it'll boot fine.
should be able to see the disk to copy stuff off onto somehting else.

 

I could yeah but ideally dont want to open up the good machine and start messing with the BIOS settings But if I have to I can

 

Quick scan of the thread, so apologies if this is a repeat...

Easiest way to view the files that are on your PC HDD on your laptop (or another PC) would be to get an external HDD enclosure that connects via USB. Remove drive from PC, bung in enclosure, then plug into other machine/lappy via USB and open it as an external HDD. Windows won't run on it as you are already in an OS, so you will be able to navigate through the folders to find the files you want....

 

Thanks Matt.

Thats what Im doing for the moment

Could I easily get my laptop to boot from it - as if it were the main HDD ?
So in theory emulating as my old PC, but from my laptop

The old one runs as Win98, but the laptop is set up on XP. Would that matter ??

 

That I don't know

 

That will open a can of worms best left unopend my friend. As good as Windows 98 was, you have hardware in your machine Windows 98 doesn't know exists, drivers will be a massive issue, and, of course, there is the enivatable that it will fuck up completely

My best advice, would be to swop the graphics card over if you can, or, ideally, use XP on the desktop machine

 

I like worms But as its my laptop and not anything to do with work it will stay as it is for now

I will just build up another PC from bits over time to replace the steam driven one that had been soooooooo reliable up until a few weeks ago