Computers - Network access to PC running DOS only

Factual Questions
1

Recently I asked a computer question the aim of which was to diagnose what was ailing my 5 year old PC. Consensus at the time was that the hard drive was on the way out. Guess what, you guys, you were right!

However, this PC has two hard drives. C has died, but didn’t have anything of much importance. D, however, is very important but was rather poorly formatted when installed (it’s 80GB and just getting Windows 98 to recognise it was a triumph). I can’t, therefore, install Windows on it without reformatting.

I have a brand spanking new PC which I am sure will fulfill all my hopes and dreams on its way to me as we speak. However, because of the rather iffy formatting of the current D drive, I’m not convinced that putting D in the new PC will let me access it (without a reformat).

What I can do is boot to DOS using the Windows 98 CD. I can see the D drive, and all the data that’s there. Now what I need to be able to do is get it on the network (I have a small network at home), so I can copy the data across the network to the new PC when it arrives. Then I can do what the hell I like with the old PC.

However, I haven’t got a clue how to go about this. Do I need a boot disk with the drivers on? How does one share a drive in DOS? Please help!

Thanks very much!

2

There are ways of networking pure DOS machines, but you’re going to need DOS drivers for your network card, for a start. After that, here looks like a good place to start.

Heck though, is it really going to be less hassle than trying to install the drive as a slave in the new machine? I wouldn’t think so.

Another alternative is to obtain one of the many bootable Linux CDs that are out there and use that; if it can read the hard drive, it will be fairly simple to set it up as a Samba share, which will just appear as part of your Windows Network Neighborhood.