Can I have help moving data from an old Windows 98 desktop PC to my new Windows 10 PC?

Anonymous
2019-04-29T19:48:42+00:00

I've got this really old Gateway desktop PC that started life as a Windows 95 or earlier (I forget) that I'm wanting to get rid of. It's been sitting unused forever and I disconnected it from my home network years ago when I needed more places to plug stuff into my router since I have 2 Windows XP machines & 2 Windows 10 machines on it.

That old Gateway PC has a 3-1/2" floppy drive that I don't have any discs for and never will, along with a CD drive, a DVD drive and I just discovered that it even has 2 USB ports on the back that I never knew existed.

I've tried endlessly to save the 500mb of Photos and Docs on it onto either a CD or DVD but from all I can tell, they both must be broken or at least maybe the formatting of the discs that I do in a drive on my Windows 10 DELL isn't correct.

Heck, during the formatting process, I even thought that since I'm wanting to use the CD in that old beast Gateway thing, I should set the File System setting from UDF 2.01 (Default) to UDF 1.50, thinking I should use the oldest one it had.

Nothing has worked and I've tried reformatting & Copy/Pasting a bunch of times.

Oddly, it will seem like it is writing to a CD and it shows it stepping thru the Videos, Photos and Docs, but I'll always keep hearing the drive's motor start & stop every 5 or 10 seconds & then if I wait long enough, it does finally show all of the files.

But it's totally weird that if I put another blank CD in that same drive, it shows as if all those same files are on it too.

Weird. That must be some flaw in that old Windows 98 Operating System I guess.

I'd at first tried sticking a USB adapter with a flash card in, thinking that would be super quick. But, it wasn't recognized and something told me that it needed a driver, which isn't possible to get on that PC since it isn't connected anymore to the internet.

So, sorry about all this talk but after spending countless hours, I've concluded that it might be best & easiest to just bring that old PC into my home office & park it next to this Windows 10 DELL Inspirion, hook them together somehow directly with a USB cable instead of thru the router, and then maybe I could just access the old PC's drive and Copy my data off of it.

After all, then I can either burn it onto a tiny flash card or just let it stay on my D: hard drive on this where all of my data is. My C: with Windows & my programs is an SSD to make it super fast.

So, I've rambled on but I do need some basic help in knowing that the old hard drive will be able to be accessed by my new PC if I just connect them with a USB cable or will I need to have a keyboard, mouse and monitor on the old PC too?

I've put this in Windows > Windows 10 > Files, Folders & Storage but if an Admin thinks it should somewhere else, please feel free to move it. Thanks for any help. :-)

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Files, folders, and storage

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Anonymous
2019-05-09T00:37:19+00:00

Did you chose the correct USB drivers for your edition of Win 98?

http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/usbmsd98.php

You stated earlier that the USB driver that you chose (downloaded) is nusb33e.exe. This is for Windows 98SE (Second Edition).

If this is the correct selection for your edition of Win 98 did you follow the installation instructions (found on the download page)?

http://www.technical-assistance.co.uk/kb/win98se-usb-mass-storage-drivers.php

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Anonymous
2019-05-08T03:47:50+00:00

First of all, what drive on the device is the drive letter E: associated with?

Why did you do both at the same time (one at a time is best practice, especially on and old outdated OS that is no longer supported (nor able to be updated past were it was when you stopped using it or updating it when updates were still available)).

At this point try shutting down then unplug the CD drive and the thumb drive then startup the device, then do a restart and give it 10 or fifteen minutes to stabilize, then plugin one of the (either the CD drive or the thumb drive, your choice) peripherals then let me know what happens. What do you then see in My Computer, System properties (Device Manager?) etc..

Let me know.

-Richard

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-05-04T04:51:32+00:00

    Hi Jeff,

    …... Do be aware however that the capacity of a 3-1/2" floppy disc is only 1.44 MB at best. …..

    Actually, I don't know how this Reply of mine had come thru about using the floppy since as I was typing it in, it had occurred to me to think about how many times I'd need to write stuff onto a disc that only holds 1.44mb (which I'd seen said on the box of 10 that I'd found for sale at Amazon for $9.95). At that point, I'd thought that I'd just deleted everything I'd written, but apparently not. ;-)

    Oops.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-04T05:43:37+00:00

    Try all 3 (if need be) and if that becomes an issue let me know and then we'll go there.

    -Richard

    When you say "try all 3", are you referring to where I mentioned OneDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox? 

    Jeff,

    It should have been obvious to you that the "all three" that I was referring to were the 3 links to the newer web browsers that I had supplied to you in a very recent previous reply to your query regarding, hello.

    If you are still using just your phone or e-mail account only to view and respond in kind (and thus relying on memory only) to progress through your created question threads stop doing that, click on the reply button in the notification e-mail instead that will then open the entire thread in your browser that can then be easily navigated (back and forth) if/as needed, accordingly. In this way, any unnecessary confusion related to previous query content and the replies to them in kind can be held to a minimum, at least.

    Best regards,

    -Richard

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-04T05:50:43+00:00

    Jeff,

    You posted that reply query, I received it, and then responded to it before you deleted it.

    Here is a copy of the e-mail notification text:

    Jeff A. Davis has replied to the question Can I have help moving data from an old Windows 98 desktop PC to my new Windows 10 PC? that you are following in<br>Microsoft Community.
    OMG, I ran across another idea last night as I lay in bed not sleeping. Since the CD writer seems to be broken and I can't get a driver to make the USB flash drive work or get it to connect to the router directly, why not just zip<br> the DOCs to make them a little smaller & go buy a 3-1/2" floppy disc over at Fry’s to put them on? The DOCs would all fit on 1-1/2 CDs as-is.<br><br><br>I've got to assume that floppy drive & the Windows software & driver will all work since it's all in "next to new" condition even though it is 25+ years old. <br><br><br><image>

    You would have had to submit it first in order for an e-mail notification to be sent out (and also it was still on the site when I chose to initiate my reply to it, in kind).

    Now, can we just get back to the task at hand?

    -Richard

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