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

Standard Disclaimer: Any non-Microsoft websites provided here appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for any ads on these sites that may advertise products frequently classified as PUP's (Potentially Unwanted Programs). Thoroughly research any product/program advertised on any site before you decide to download and install it.

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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
    2019-05-04T05:52:22+00:00

    OK, I just got the OffByOne browser that you gave me the link to that is: http://offbyone.com/offbyone/index.htm

    I like what it says on that page about it being the world's smallest & fastest web browser that's only 1.2mb and it will work with Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.

    This could be interesting. I wonder why they never made versions to work on Windows 7, 8 or 10?

    So, I've got it on that machine now. It is super fast. What's my next step? I'll let you take the lead. Am I going to get a driver for the USB thumbdrive or should I access a cloud and upload to it? I would think that getting the thumbdrive to work would make the process go lots faster that an Upload and then a Download.

    NOTES TO SELF DURING INSTALLATION:

    It said "Download the Setup application OffByOneSetup.exe to a temp folder then run it to install. Installation consists of copying the program file ob1.exe and the optional Open SSL (linked) support files to a folder of your choice and optionally creating a program group and an icon for it. The executable file is also ZIP-compatible." (but I don't think that matters to me at all since I'm not going to ZIP it to save it or send it so I don't need it as a smaller file)

    The first time I clicked 1 of the 3 Download sites to Download, it failed after a little while saying THE PAGE CANNOT BE DISPLAYED. That scared me & I thought "Oh no, more of this refusing to load sites thing."

    But, I tried it again & this time I right-clicked 1 of the 3 Download sites & I chose OPEN IN A NEW WINDOW which then popped a File Download warning box which offered OPEN, SAVE and CANCEL. I chose Save & I set it to Save it in a New Folder on the Desktop I created & named OFFBYONE SETUP FOLDER & called OffByOneSetup.exe but when it started to download it, it popped saying "Internet Explorer cannot download OffByOneSetup.exe from offbyone.com. The connection with the server was reset." but then I tried it again & it sailed on thru in 8 seconds so I clicked Open Folder.

    It then said it would put The Off By One Browser icons into the Program Manager group named Home Page Software (which I think is the company name & it didn't seem like there were any other logical choices so I said NEXT. It did add an Uninstall The OffByOne Browser into a folder called Home Page Software which is in Programs along with the browser itself (I think that's what it looked like). Just being me, I renamed the "Home Page Software" folder in Programs to "Off By One browser folder" and dragged it down to be shown in alphabetical order.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-05-04T07:26:15+00:00

    Ok, so were able to download and install the "OffByOne" browser, good so far.

    As to the "NOTES TO SELF DURING INSTALLATION:" gibberish:

    Did you choose the "Setup application (OffByOneSetup.exe)" download? This would be the choice for you (most).

    The ZIP file choice (Zip File with OpenSSL DLLs) would be for those that wish/need to configure their own compilation or to use as a portable (not installed on a device) browser.

    If you used the Setup application (OffByOneSetup.exe) it should have offered to create a program group and icon for it.

    (In such case I don't know why you would have felt the need to change the folder name (you would have to remember this in the future possibly, however, being that you're going to decommission the devise in short order anyway, no worries).

    A footnote for clarities sake:

    (SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) is the communications protocol used for navigating to "https:" addresses. This protocol provides secure, encrypted communication between the Web browser and the Web server. It is typically used by sites that request or display confidential information such as online banks, brokerages and shopping sites that accept credit cards and has become even more widely used today for increased security protocol purposes).

    Your next step?

    That's up to you Jeff, if you want to try playing around with USB drivers go ahead.

    As Food for Thought:

    If your internet speeds are so slow that uploading to the cloud (if you just leave the data there you can access it from any connected device plus send out a link for anyone to view an item or items selection via e-mail or text) and then downloading same to local storage would be that much more time consuming (also taking into consideration of the potential difficulty factor in playing with USB drivers) then???

    (Again, being that you're going to decommission the devise in short order anyway?).

    Your choice as to which way to go from here Jeff.

    Or do/try both if you've the time on your hands and the inclination to do so. If so, I would recommend trying to upload to the cloud first and then try playing with drivers after if that sounds like fun to you, in that way (presuming that the upload is successful), if the Win 98 system becomes hosed in the process (of having driver fun?) then you'll have the data already copied to a viable elsewhere (somewhere) that is able to be accessed and used, regardless.

    Follow the above supplied information and recommendations by your own choice and at your own risk.

    -Richard

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-05-04T17:45:18+00:00

    I'm struggling trying to use that Off by One browser to go to my OneDrive account. I finally figured out, I think, what to do on that browser to open a box where you type in a site's URL that you want to go to. Maybe I'm doing this wrong since it is failing. Since there's no obvious box on the page that they set up by default to be the homepage, I found a button near the upper left named URL and if hovered, it pops saying "Navigate to URL" and then it pops a box and I typed in www.onedrive.live.com which should get me there. But that fails and a window is displayed saying "Page Status: Failed - could not connect to "www.onedrive.live.com" . HTTP/1.0 301 Moved Permanently.  

    It does something similar if I have it try to go to Facebook. by typing in either https://www.facebook.com or www.facebook.com   

    So, it looks like this browser won't work either to let me either send files to a cloud or to get a driver that would make my thumbdrive work?

    And regarding my missing things you say, I get overwhelmed when too many Replies come in, especially since this site was errantly programmed to not actually go to the actual Reply if you click on the Reply Notification email's [Post a reply] button. It just goes to the last Reply that was made by anybody. They really should fix that, along with making this box that we type in WAY more user friendly as far as:

    1. How it handles things it you click "Reply with quote" before you've typed in anything yet. It's basically impossible then to ever get your cursor out of the grey quoted stuff's box.
    2. When editing a Reply, the text and any Images will hover and hide the buttons if you're on a Windows phone, so you need to just guess where to tap and amazingly, that hidden button still works.
    3. The site sucks sometimes with how it behaves when trying to enter a Return to start a new line. It just ignores you.

    There's more problems but please forgive me for my ranting. I told this & more to Microsoft in that Site Feedback tab on the right more than a year ago, but it's never been fixed.

    Anyway, I don't know what to try next. Should we try to get me a USB thumb drive driver? Maybe Off By One can get to one of those sites?

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