Help Transferring files from very Old PC

  • Thread starter Thread starter Trizi
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Trizi

Hello -

I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and
hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.

My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be
something out there...
 
Trizi said:
Hello -

I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and
hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.


If the .exe file is not terribly large you can get a file splitter and have
it spanned onto several floppies

http://www.dekabyte.com/filesplitter/


or just google for: file splitter
 
Trizi said:
Hello -

I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and
hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.

My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be
something out there...

THere are a couple options. One is to get a program such as laplink to
transfer files over usb.

(if you have usb on the old machine)

the thing is, unless you're interested solely in keeping old tax
records, tax software is really only good the year it came out, as tax
codes are continuously updated.
 
Trizi said:
I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive. I have
many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on one of
them. My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be something out there...

The simplest, and probably the slowest, is to run HyperTerm (or the
equivalent) on both machines, connected with a null modem cable.
You can check the connections etc. by typing on one machine and
seeing it appear on the other. Then use Zmodem to transfer the
files. Set the link to 115 kBaud.

If you don't have a serial port on the new system, shame on you for
buying a crippled machine. In fact the lack of a floppy is also
shameful, but not as bad. Then you will probably need a third
machine and do such things as transferring to flash drives.

--
<http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.txt>

"A man who is right every time is not likely to do very much."
-- Francis Crick, co-discover of DNA
"There is nothing more amazing than stupidity in action."
-- Thomas Matthews
 
I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and
hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.

My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be
something out there...

If both PC's have internet access, you could use the old pc to
e-mail the files to yourself (as an attachment; you may need to
use more than one message :-)

Retreive the e-mails using your laptop, check the files and wipe
them from the old PC.
 
Trizi said:
Hello -

I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and
hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.

My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be
something out there...

You can take out the HD, and use a cable to connect it with your laptop, and
then transfer the programs. Quite easy.
 
Trizi said:
Hello -

I have a very old PC that I am donating to a school in Jamaica. I'd
like to clean the PC and hand it over for shipping in a couple of weeks.

In cleaning it up I realize I have some tax software left on it that
I'd like to keep.

Here's my challenge:

My old PC has one 3.5" floppy drive and one read-only CD drive.
I have many old 3.5" diskettes but the .exe file alone is big to fit on
one of them.

My newer laptop only has USB.

Soooo, can anyone think of a way to transfter these programs? There's
got to be
something out there...

You didn't say what operating systems are involved. The tax software
might not even run on the laptop's o/s ... and it is likely that it
would need to be installed (rooted into the registry) rather than just
copied over. Does your laptop have a network port? How about connecting
the two together with a crossover cable and moving files that way?
My "very old" PC's are 200mHz Pentium boxes that happily run tcp/ip
under win2k or linux ... or even ms-dos with a little fiddling.
 
the thing is, unless you're interested solely in keeping old tax
records, tax software is really only good the year it came out, as tax
codes are continuously updated.


Good point!
It's probably not worth retrieving
 
Great solution - thanks - will try.


Gerard said:
If both PC's have internet access, you could use the old pc to
e-mail the files to yourself (as an attachment; you may need to
use more than one message :-)

Retreive the e-mails using your laptop, check the files and wipe
them from the old PC.
 
Good point. What's a crossover cable? Can you send me a hyperlink with
a picture so I know what to buy?
 
Good point. What's a crossover cable? Can you send me a
hyperlink with a picture so I know what to buy?

A crossover cable is very similar to a "regular" ethernet cable -- just
a couple of wires are reversed such that the transmit line of one PC is
connected to the receive line of the other, and vice versa. Here's a
description:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable

Personally, I would recommend getting one of the modular crossover
adapters pictured in that wikipedia article. In that way, you can just
use/buy standard cables and use the adapter to crossover in those
circumstances where you need it. Increasingly that is required less and
less, as many cards now can sense which way the wind blows and
uplink/crossover by themselves.
 
Trizi said:
Very interesting. And the software is free to download.

Thankyou


Yes

there are plenty of free file splitters out the...just google...

if the file is small enough to fit on just a few floppies...
it's pretty easy to do
 
Since you mention the .exe is too big for a floppy, does that mean the
new machine has a floppy drive as well? If so, you can split the file
as some have suggested, or just get some compression software like zip,
arc, zoo, etc. which will shrink the .exe and/or split it across several
floppies. It may be that the .exe will compress enough to fit on one
floppy.
 
Thanks, no the new machine only has USB.
My thoughts were going to at least getting it onto a floppy so I could
take it somewhere and
get them to transfer it to a flash drive or something.

Thanks!
 
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