Need help connecting 2 PCs

[molotovrevolution]

I have an older pc running windows 98 that wont let me write to the C drive for some reason, preventing me from installing a burner or any other way to get the files that I desperately need off of the drive. Is there anyway i can link it to my PC that i am running XP on using an ethernet cable? Neither PC is set up for the internet. Thanks

 

[Guest]

It might be easier to remove the Win 98 hard drive and install it as a slave drive in the Win XP computer.

Grumpy

 

[Iceblue]

I have an older pc running windows 98 that wont let me write to the C drive for some reason, preventing me from installing a burner or any other way to get the files that I desperately need off of the drive. Is there anyway i can link it to my PC that i am running XP on using an ethernet cable? Neither PC is set up for the internet. Thanks

It sounds to me like your old PC is seriously unstable. Either that or the C drive is jam-packed full. Neither is good.

I like Grumpy's suggestion. Rather than try to coax any new functionality out of a seriously unstable Win98 system, take the C drive out of it and install it as drive D on your XP system.

If you're not comfortable with doing that, have a repair tech do it for you.

Another alternative is to mount the C drive from your 98 machine into an external USB box. Again, if you are not comfortable inside your computer case, have a repair tech do it for you.

 

[molotovrevolution]

thanks alot both of you, i wound up throwin it in as a secondary. I wasnt sure on how to do that because the ribbon going to my c drive didnt have a second connector to it. But i just unplugged one of my cd drives and used those connectors and everything seems to be working fine. Again, thanks alot this has been quite a pain for a while now.

 

[molotovrevolution]

say- no one knows anything about rebuilding a .vxd file huh? this machine (seperate from the other two) is missing a vxd file that is used to load drivers, preventing me from putting a soundcard in it, or any other hardware- which is driving me crazy.

 

[Iceblue]

Do you still have your old Win 98 install disks? If you have an actual Win98 disk (as opposed to, say, a restore disk for your PC) it may be possible to do a repair install. If it is Win98SE, it may be worth salvaging; if it is pre-SE Win98, I wouldn't bother. Save your data and move on.

 

[molotovrevolution]

The machine i am on now, the one with the .vxd problem is running windows ME. Any clues on how to go about this? Thanks again

 

[Iceblue]

If you have a Win ME disk, you could try a repair install, but ME is absolutely the worst version of Windows since 3.1. It is unstable and full of bugs. It was definitely a step backwards from 98SE, IMO. To make matters worse, XP came out very shortly after ME, and Microsoft promptly abandoned it.

I used to own a Win ME machine; I finally purchased an upgrade version of XP Home. Tremendous improvement. That is what I would recommend for you, too.

98SE is still usable, and worth repairing, especially for older hardware; ME is not worth the time, IMO.

If you go the XP route, back up your system first.

And, make sure you pay attention to the "audit" it will do of your system, listing the programs you currently have that will have problems running properly on XP.

If you have the hard drive space, the upgrade install will keep everything hanging around so you can, in effect, try out XP for awhile and still be able to revert to your ME system.

Once you decide you want to keep XP (and you will even though you may have to figure out what to do with those apps that don't work properly, etc.), you can tell Windows to delete the old files, and then you can convert the format of your hard drive from FAT32 to NTFS, and never look back.

 

[molotovrevolution]

thanks alot, ill give it a shot asap and get back to you.