This is a requirement where two hard drives share the same IDE socket on the motherboard.
The main hard drive already in the PC is known as the ‘master’ and any add-ons as ‘slaves’. More often than not the drive casing label will have an illustration of the jumper setting required to achieve what we are after – ‘slave’ status. However, before you connect anything you will need to identify whether the old hard drive requires its jumper settings modified.
The two end connectors attach to the existing hard drive and the motherboard Part way along this cable you will find a spare connector and it is to this that the old hard drive will be hooked up.Īn IDE cable waiting for some action – note the connector (not quite) midway between the two ends – this is our ‘spare’ to which the old hard drive will be attached. The first thing is to locate the existing hard drive – identify the wide-flat IDE cable (usually grey – see above) and you are there – one end will be connected to the motherboard and the other into the back of your existing hard drive. If you are not up to speed in this respect, and by that I’m not referring to geek-like knowledge, I’d advise you to put the cover back on and step away from the machine! There’s no place here for those who are recklessly inquisitive and find themselves ‘experimenting and just poking around’ for example.Īrmed with the knowledge that there’s no simple solution to the fact that an XP machine will not read a W98 drive, I fired up the just-functioning IBM ( needs must where the devil drives and all that) and, after establishing that we were all systems go, I switched off and removed the casing to allow a bit of internal exploration.Ī fairly typical chaotic scene – the internals of your PC It also assumes you are reasonably adept at identifying ‘what’s in the box’, e.g. The following involves opening the casing of your W98 PC and powering it up – all the usual warnings regarding static and electric shock should be carefully heeded. Run DriveSpace in Windows.Īll very well, except you can’t do this with XP. To use this disk, you must first mount it. This hard drive was compressed using Windows 98 DriveSpace.
So, how do we get at the data stored on an old W98 hard drive? Be aware that when I attempted the following using the XP desktop it would have none of it – W98 uses a very different file compression method which requires access to a PC running W98 – step up the IBM! (not as simple as it sounds … now where’s that PS2 mouse I had, and I’m sure there’s a non USB keyboard around somewhere?).Īlso note that if you attach the old hard drive to an XP machine you’ll get this on boot-up …
I have two other PCs which have been inherited over the years – an old IBM Aptiva running W98 which shares the garage with the PB and my regular desktop, used mainly for photo storage which is a couple of years old and runs on XP.
The old 4MB WD Hard Drive from the Packard Bell I also unearthed another hard drive (a Seagate ST3391A – again 4MB) that I’d added to the PB by means of a removable caddy – no operating system on this one, but plenty of old files/photos waiting to see the light of day once more. No luck – there was clearly a problem with the installed operating system (originally W95 upgraded to 98 I recall) and it wouldn’t boot up.
However, in an inquisitive mood one day, I decided to fire up the old PB desktop and see what was on the hard drive – all 4MB of it (I remember paying extra to upgrade from the standard 2MB HDD!). I’ve kept every one of my old computers – the ZX Spectrum is still in the attic – the first desktop I owned, (a Packard Bell c.1995 ), is lying in the garage etc, etc … there’s no doubt that I’m a PC hoarder!