IT techie question

once again i bow down to all the techie guru's on the site.

I am trying to get about 700mb of info off an old computer. the computer is win 98 and works fine apart from i cant get it to recognise flash drives, portable drives etc. it comes up with unknown hardware and even when i point it in the direction of the driver, it still wont work.

so next step was to try and link it wirelessly with my laptop.. old computer is win 98... new one is win xp. after several hours of trying i seem to have networks on both computers called mshome but neither can see the other computer,,, so given up on that route,

final work around. old computer has broadband access. does anyone know of an ftp site or similar when i can dump 700mb and then download onto my new pc... seems by far the easiest way.

thanks in advance

karl

yes but you'll have to wait until tuesday (!)

I dont know any ftp sites - but I had a similar problem with wireless and connecting 98 to XP last year. I worked it out by logging into the 98 pc (when you start up) with the administrator or as a user that was set up on the XP machine. It gives you network rights I believe. Did you try that?

I use a firewire connection now between laptops as the wireless is to slow moving data - this maybe another option as you can plug from one to the other without any hubs plus its simple to setup. Ebay for a cable or PC world.

I am no expert however - just a home enthusiast thats been stuck trying to solve the same problem

Originally Posted by kjames

once again i bow down to all the techie guru's on the site.

I am trying to get about 700mb of info off an old computer. the computer is win 98 and works fine apart from i cant get it to recognise flash drives, portable drives etc. it comes up with unknown hardware and even when i point it in the direction of the driver, it still wont work.

so next step was to try and link it wirelessly with my laptop.. old computer is win 98... new one is win xp. after several hours of trying i seem to have networks on both computers called mshome but neither can see the other computer,,, so given up on that route,

final work around. old computer has broadband access. does anyone know of an ftp site or similar when i can dump 700mb and then download onto my new pc... seems by far the easiest way.

thanks in advance

karl

take the hard drive out of the old machine , set it to be a slave drive (usually marked on the drive) then connect it to any spare cable inside the new machine , boot Xp and voila a new drive letter to copy your info from.

or if that's too difficult, find the usb upgrade for win98 and transfer to your removable media once installed.

2 bits of info that might help http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q240075/

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=263218

and a P.S. here if your not on windows 98 B or known as second edition then it will be difficult to get any usb device working.

I'd take the hard disc out as mentioned above, or you could install a cd/dvd writer and copy the info onto that. You mentioned 700 MB which is about the limit for a CD, so a DVD writer is probably a better bet - it should be possible to replace the cd-rom unit that I assume is already there. Take one temporarily out of another PC

thanks for the advice guys.

I dont really want to take the hard drive out and set it up as slave (pretends he knows what he's talking about)
probs some more info. old computer we're giving away to some friends children... so dont want to spend any money buying a cd burner for it... new computer is a lap top, so i dont want to open the case to connect hard drives to it as it will void the warranty... and not sure you can connect desktop HD to a laptop.(?)

going to plod on trying to get the USB HD to work... the usb ports certainly work as i'm connecting to the internet via a wireless usb thingy.

Gnan, if i'm still stuck on tuesday, the use of an FTP site would be great.

thanks

karl

problem solved.. managed to find a win 98 driver for a usb pen drive i've got kicking around.

all seems to be working fine.
thanks for the advice and offers of help

k

Originally Posted by kjames

thanks for the advice guys.

I dont really want to take the hard drive out and set it up as slave (pretends he knows what he's talking about)
probs some more info. old computer we're giving away to some friends children... so dont want to spend any money buying a cd burner for it... new computer is a lap top, so i dont want to open the case to connect hard drives to it as it will void the warranty... and not sure you can connect desktop HD to a laptop.(?)

going to plod on trying to get the USB HD to work... the usb ports certainly work as i'm connecting to the internet via a wireless usb thingy.

Gnan, if i'm still stuck on tuesday, the use of an FTP site would be great.

thanks

karl

you see if you had told us the fact about the laptop in the first question , half my post would not have been written :P

Originally Posted by kjames

once again i bow down to all the techie guru's on the site.
..............

so next step was to try and link it wirelessly with my laptop.. old computer is win 98... new one is win xp. after several hours of trying i seem to have networks on both computers called mshome but neither can see the other computer,,, so given up on that route,


karl

your right, i wish i had thought to of mention it in the first place... 'ahem'

karl

Originally Posted by kjames

your right, i wish i had thought to of mention it in the first place... 'ahem'

karl

yeah but you didn't state the laptop was the new computer I just assumed you also had a laptop lying around .

in fact you worded it like the laptop was the old computer . :P

anyhow glad you have found a solution to your problem