Getting data off win95 to XP

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miskairal - 30 May 2006 09:55 GMT

Hi all and thanks for taking the time to read this,

Friends of mine have finally bought a new pc with xp home installed.
Their old machine has windows95 installed. All their files are backed up
onto floppy disks but there is no floppy drive in the new pc. They have
no network card, no USB ports and no CD burner in their 95 machine.

If their old drive was to be installed as a slave in the XP machine,
temporarily, would XP be able to see the files on it?

Thanks
miskairal

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Rick Rogers - 30 May 2006 11:19 GMT

Hi,

Yes, and that would be the easiest way to transfer them.

Signature

Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

> Hi all and thanks for taking the time to read this,
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Thanks
> miskairal

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jmatt@webace.com.au - 30 May 2006 13:36 GMT

> If their old drive was to be installed as a slave in the XP machine,
> temporarily, would XP be able to see the files on it?

Also, you may need to change the new drive to Master with Slave ( MS )
the slave goes in the middle of the cable in most cases or cable it in
it's own slot.

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Ken Blake, MVP - 30 May 2006 18:39 GMT

> Hi all and thanks for taking the time to read this,
>
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> If their old drive was to be installed as a slave in the XP machine,
> temporarily, would XP be able to see the files on it?

Yes. Depending on how much there is to transfer, that may well be the best
choice.

Three other choices they might want to consider.

1. Buy a diskette drive (they are $15 or so) and install it in the new
machine.

2. E-mail the files to themselves from the old machine and read the mail on
the new.

3. Take the floppies to a friend who has both a diskette drive and a CD
burner and ask him to burn a CD or CDs.

But if there's a substantial amount to transfer, moving the Windows 95 drive
to the new machine (either temporarily or permanently) is probably the best
choice.

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Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
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miskairal - 30 May 2006 21:57 GMT

Thanks everyone. I'm not sure how much there is to transfer. I have a
floppy drive in my pc with XPhome but I've never been able to get it to
work and keep forgetting about it seeing as I never use it. Even with
brand new floppy disks it tells me
"No ID address mark was found on the floppy disk".

Totally OT but may be of interest to you. It is currently -1.2°C (about
30F) here at 6.30am in Qld, Australia. That's pretty darn cold for us :)

Thanks again
Cheerio
miskairal

> Hi all and thanks for taking the time to read this,
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
> Thanks
> miskairal

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Harry Ohrn MS MVP - 30 May 2006 23:09 GMT

XP often has trouble reading floppies that were created on older version of
Windows. One work around is to install a 3 Mode floppy driver like this
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/download/18221.html

Signature

Harry Ohrn MS MVP [Shell\User]

> Thanks everyone. I'm not sure how much there is to transfer. I have a
> floppy drive in my pc with XPhome but I've never been able to get it to
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>> Thanks
>> miskairal

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miskairal - 31 May 2006 09:04 GMT

Thanks for the info but I don't understand to what you have directed me.
It appears to be something for a laptop pc and on googling I can find no
reference to a similar thing for a desktop pc. I have tried using brand
new out of the box disks but even they don't work. I'm not all that
concerned about it as I never use it but it would be nice to know how to
fix the problem. It is always possible that the drive is faulty but it's
just not worth the effort to test it on another pc.

Thanks again.

> XP often has trouble reading floppies that were created on older version of
> Windows. One work around is to install a 3 Mode floppy driver like this
> http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqnk/us/download/18221.html

Reply to this Message

Rick Rogers - 31 May 2006 02:08 GMT

Hi,

Xp is not so good with floppies, it's very picky about hardware and if the
heads are even slightly misaligned the read will error out. Not the best
option for the transfer of files.

-1.2°C is a mild fall or spring morning around here, -20°C is the norm in
winter, and -42°C (or F, they are the same) is not unusual.

Signature

Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

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miskairal - 31 May 2006 09:10 GMT

Well gee, I think I'll stop whinging about the temp then :) Are you in
Canada?

I've never trusted floppies. I will enourage my friend to buy a USB
drive. I use my USB drive for immediate backup and then burn a CD every
2 weeks or so depending on how much I want to back up. Poor old
floppies, they served their purpose once upon a time :)

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> -1.2°C is a mild fall or spring morning around here, -20°C is the norm
> in winter, and -42°C (or F, they are the same) is not unusual.

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