Copying many files off of a DOS computer

Factual Questions
1

I’m finally upgrading my father from the DOS computer he has used for the last 15 years or so to a Win 7 computer. So I’ve got to transfer about his 2,500 WordPerfect for DOS files, totaling about 30 MB.

The problem is that the old machine has no modern output devices or systems. No USB, no CD-R, no network, etc. And even if it did, it would be hard if not impossible to find DOS drivers for them.

The hard disks are SCSI, controlled by a BusLogic FlashPoint LT controller. I’ve tried just installing them in the new computer, but there are no drivers for later versions of Windows for this device, and it isn’t recognized. (If you search for drivers for it, you only find a bunch of sites that want you to buy software that will allegedly update all of your drivers for you. I’m not going to pay $20 or $30 on the chance that they’ve really got this driver.)

I’ve also tried installing an IDE hard drive into this system onto which I hoped to copy the files, so I would then later install it into the new machine. The old machine wouldn’t recognize it.

So my best option seems to be copying the files onto floppies. Ideally, they would all fit onto about 22 disks, and I have that many. But the ordinary DOS copy programs (including xcopy) don’t support copying onto multiple floppies. So I’d have to laboriously copy files manually, making sure I get them all.

The old machine doesn’t have a DOS backup program, but I’d be surprised if I could find a modern version for the new machine that would restore a DOS backup anyway.

Does anyone know of a DOS utility I can install that will simplify this process, or can you suggest a simpler way of doing it?

Thanks.

2

If you have the disk space for it, you can use something like pkzip to zip up all of the files into a single zip file. Then you can use one of many split and merge dos utilities that are out there to split it into floppy sized chunks.

Alternately, if you have a serial cable, you can use something like kermit to make a serial connection to the modern computer and transfer the files using that.

3

SCSI is still used for servers and is far from obsolete. There seem to be external enclosures for a SCSI disks readily available for under $50. Most are two to eight bay and are more expensive. The single bay ones are what I’m suggesting. These have USB2 and/or Firewire interfaces. Buy the enclosure, mount the disk in it, connect to the new computer via a modern interface, and then copy the files.

Another option is to buy a modern SCSI card for the new computer and connect the old drive to it. Just make sure the new card is backward compatible with the old SCSI standards. Most are.

4

Install a IDE hard drive using a FAT partition no larger than 2G as your primary partition at the beginning of the hard drive. Copy the files to this hard drive. Install the hard drive with files to the Win 7 computer. That’s the easiest solution I can come up with. We are talking about a big gap in compatibility which means much more work for you. Ideally get hold of an old hard drive less than 2G in size. You may even have to deal with a drive less than 512 M in size depending on the computer BIOS.

5

Winzip & PKZip will do the split at the same time as the compression if given the correct settings.

6

If the machine has a PCI slot, get a USB card and use a DOS USB driver.

Google ‘dos usb driver’ to see the various utilities, or start here.

7

If you’re willing to spend a small amount of money, you can save yourself a whole lot of time.

Buy LapLink. It was designed for exactly this problem. I have used it several times in transferring to new computers, and found it worth every penny.

And they still offer a version intended to work with old DOS computers! ($50)

8

Second for LapLink - it’s saved me a ton of headaches and is pretty quick, too!

9

My first try would be – assuming the new computer has at least one PATA connector – finding an IDE drive small enough to be compatible with the old computer. A close next would be a PCI/USB card in the old computer, copying either to a thumb drive or directly via serial link to the new computer (I suspect the laplink software isn’t that necessary, given your knowledge; if the USB is working on the old computer, copying files to a thumbdrive is probably easier than paying for and installing laplink). Thirdly is getting an external SCSI bay for the new computer.

However, one more possibility not yet mentioned is finding an IDE CD burner that has DOS drivers and – importantly – DOS burning software (again, check for hardware compatibility). Like I said, it would be my fourth option, but just mentioning it.

10

the zip utilities would work well for that small amount of transfer. any files that can’t be fit onto a disc by compression can be spanned onto multiple discs.

i would transfer all files as Word Perfect if possible and zip only those needed to fit.

i would make sure of the successful import of the files on the new machine. you might have to select the format you save in for the transfer. best to figure that before doing the batch.

i’ve similar on many boat anchors.

Word Perfect was the best word processor by far, at least the versions back when i used it, intuitive and easy.

11

Thanks for all the suggestions, guys. As it happened, the old machine had a copy of Win95 on it, and its copy function allows copying to multiple floppies, so I ended up doing it that way. It took a couple of hours, and used 25 disks, but it wasn’t too bad.

If I had only had the DOS copy program, I certainly would have used one of your good suggestions. Thanks again.