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Want to preserve contents of IBM ESDI HDD in my portable... how do I back it up?

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aaron7

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The drive in my IBM 5545T is full of programs and games that I haven't seen before. Things that were made locally even; only 20 miles from my house!

Because of this I really want to clone the drive and preserve everything on it.

Since the drive is ESDI, I have no way of connecting it to another machine for backups.

Since the floppy drive is dead, at least for now, I can't copy files off. I would prefer to not use this method due to possible data corruption anyways.

To make matters worse, the drive has been compressed.

I'm guessing my best bet would be to interface with the machine via parallel or serial, but it's been so long since I've done something like that.

Anyone have ideas?
 
Found LapLink on it! Now... what to do with it... haha
 

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Appears to be 5 based on the folder name (LL5). So I'd need the same program (or newer) on another system and I'm good, correct? Is LL downloadable? No way to copy it off this machine!
 
Too cool! I'll have to try and read into this. Been too long.
 
Depending on the amount of data you want to save, Lap Link could take a LONG TIME. I would try to install a NIC and transfer via ethernet. Our own mbbrutman has a terrific FTP Server and Client in his MTCP suite of programs.
 
ibmapc said:
Depending on the amount of data you want to save, Lap Link could take a LONG TIME. I would try to install a NIC and transfer via ethernet. Our own mbbrutman has a terrific FTP Server and Client in his MTCP suite of programs.
Click to expand...
Not with a parallel cable.

But, in any case, probably a lot less time than having to set up and configure the hardware and software EXTERNALLY and then moving it over each time until the configuration is correct. :)
 
aaron7 said:
Too cool! I'll have to try and read into this. Been too long.
Click to expand...
1. Re serial and parallel cables. Not any will do. You need the specific ones that LapLink requires. Example at [here].

2. 'Remote install' requires the serial version of the Laplink cable, and that MODE.COM be on the target machine.

3. Some known Laplink issues at [here].

5. With some adjusting of DOSBox, DOS versions of LapLink can be made to run in DOSBox. However, the process is unreliable, because most people need to use a USB-to-serial adapter on the Windows box, and very few models of those work for the process. In case you are interested, an example procedure is at [here].
 
I think you want to get a sector by sector image of this drive, not just copy the files. It's too easy to miss a hidden or system file otherwise.

The trick will be finding a system that you can move the drive or controller to that can boot Linux and run DD. (Then again, with an old enough version of Linux maybe you can run directly from floppies on that machine.) Or you could find an older drive imaging program that will clone a drive over the network.
 
ibmapc said:
Depending on the amount of data you want to save, Lap Link could take a LONG TIME. I would try to install a NIC and transfer via ethernet. Our own mbbrutman has a terrific FTP Server and Client in his MTCP suite of programs.
Click to expand...

Are RJ45 MCA cards expensive? If not, that method might be best.

Stone said:
Not with a parallel cable.

But, in any case, probably a lot less time than having to set up and configure the hardware and software EXTERNALLY and then moving it over each time until the configuration is correct. :)
Click to expand...

Good to know.

modem7 said:
1. Re serial and parallel cables. Not any will do. You need the specific ones that LapLink requires. Example at [here].

2. 'Remote install' requires the serial version of the Laplink cable, and that MODE.COM be on the target machine.

3. Some known Laplink issues at [here].

5. With some adjusting of DOSBox, DOS versions of LapLink can be made to run in DOSBox. However, the process is unreliable, because most people need to use a USB-to-serial adapter on the Windows box, and very few models of those work for the process. In case you are interested, an example procedure is at [here].
Click to expand...


Hmm, I have a yellow 25-pin cable that says SYMANTEC PCANYWHERE on each end. Might that work?

Is MODE.COM downloadable anywhere so I could put it on the receiving machine?

I'll be using another vintage system to do the transfer, so no DOSbox.

mbbrutman said:
I think you want to get a sector by sector image of this drive, not just copy the files. It's too easy to miss a hidden or system file otherwise.

The trick will be finding a system that you can move the drive or controller to that can boot Linux and run DD. (Then again, with an old enough version of Linux maybe you can run directly from floppies on that machine.) Or you could find an older drive imaging program that will clone a drive over the network.
Click to expand...

If that were possible, I'd be cloning the HDD as we speak! But I have nothing else with the strange PS/2 ESDI edge connector to plug this HDD into, and there are very limited machines that I could do this with; all of which pull a premium on ebay.

I think file transfer is my only choice.
 
You probably should look for an older version of Ghost. It will clone the drive to another drive, over a network, using a parallel port, etc.
 
Copying all the files over, one partition at a time! Couldn't figure out how to select files across multiple partitions at once heh.

49464959_10214162080909916_3385529149555736576_n.jpg49606027_10214162081869940_1134308834332901376_o.jpg
 
mbbrutman said:
I think you want to get a sector by sector image of this drive, not just copy the files. It's too easy to miss a hidden or system file otherwise.
Click to expand...

I believe some of the the DOS versions of Ghost support parallel transfers.
 
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