Getting data off a pre-USB laptop with a dead floppy drive.

Michael Black wrote in
news:alpine.LNX.2.02.1411182340120.12273@darkstar. example.org:

On Tue, 18 Nov 2014, Flasherly wrote:

On 18 Nov 2014 15:48:41 GMT, "AL_n" wrote:


I tried removing the hard drive, hoping it would fit one of my USB
portable harddrive cases, but the connector is different.

Coming through the PCMCIA with a device to transfer to reach the HD
is one way. Say a usb pcmcia card, a controller...all kinds of those
sorts of things, maybe a little cheaper than a floppy.

YOu can get a PCMCIA to CompactFlash card adapter, and then get a
CompactFlash card. Or a PCMCIA to ethernet card, or PCMCIA to modem
card. Or a PCMCIA wifi card.

The problem is, will they be easy to get at this point, when the
PCMCIA bus is long gone from laptops? ONe may have to track them
down, and i'm not sure if they'd be cheap or expensive (depending on
whether the seller decides nobody wants them, or decides they are now
hard to get so the price should go up).

I know I have Powerbook 1400 and though I'm not likely to really use
it at this point, I have bought PCMCIA cards at garage sales for a
dollar each or so. So I have that modem, and I did get that wifi
card. I was at one sale that had some ethernet cards, and as I was
walking away, the guy rushed after me and gave me a couple of others.
I think that was the place that had the PCMCIA to CompactFlash card,
with a relatively small COmpactFlash card in it, but it wsa one of
those things with built in wifi, which has potential.

So long as the hard drive uses the IDE interface (I'm thinking it's
likely that old, what with PCMCIA and no ethernet), I'd just get it
out of there and connect it to a computer with an IDE interface. Lots
of old computers around that do that, cheap if you just need to get
the data off the drive. But I've just opened up my main computer and
hooked up an IDE drive externally, just connect the IDE connector and
a power connector, leaving the drive outside the box for the brief
time it takes to copy the drive.

Michael


Hi there,
Yes, PCMCIA flash card readers are easily available, but not very
cheaply. A PCMCIA-wifi card seems to be a cheaper option - ar a PCMCIA-
ethernet card.

As for connecting the hard drive to a desctop PC with IDE may be an
option. I will have to start digging through my garage in search of an
old PC that didn't get thrown away. Thanks...

Al

"AL_n" wrote in message
...
VanguardLH wrote in :

AL_n wrote:

PS, the full list of ports on the Compaq Armada 4220T is as follows:

1 x PCMCIA
1 x keyboard / mouse - generic - 6 pin mini-DIN (PS/2 style)
1 x docking / port replicator - 176 pin docking
1 x headphones - output - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm
1 x parallel - IEEE 1284 (EPP/ECP) - 25 pin D-Sub (DB-25)
1 x microphone - input - mini-phone mono 3.5 mm
1 x serial - RS-232C - 9 pin D-Sub (DB-9)
1 x display / video - VGA - 15 pin HD D-Sub (HD-15)
1 x display / video - composite video output
1 x audio - line-in - mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm

and
1 x infrared - IrDA (according to the online handbook, though I've
never discovered it!)

And what ports are available on the OTHER computer? There is software
that will let you do serial-to-serial port file transfers. See
http://www.bing.com/search?q=file%20...0serial%20port.

You cannot connect this old laptop to a network? You did not list an
Ethernet port. If there is no RJ-45 Ethernet port, doesn't that
laptop have a PCMCIA slot? If so, get a PCMCIA Ethernet card
(http://www.citylabinfo.com/410-943-t...ia-ethernet-ca
rd.jpg, example only). Are you posting here using the old laptop? If
so, it is already hooked up to a network. If the old laptop can be
networked, why not use file sharing over your intranet to transfer
files from host to host? If you are connecting only one computer to
however you connect to your ISP (dial-up, DSL, cable modem) then you
will need to add a router so you can have multiple computers connected
to the Internet plus those computers can be networked together on your
intranet (LAN side of the router).

I take it the old laptop doesn't have an inbuilt CD-R optical drive so
you could use sneakernet to transfer files.


Thanks for your helpful suggestions. The old laptop has no internet
connectivity at present. Unfortunately my PC doesn;t have a serial socket,
so good suggestion about serial-to-serial data transfer is not an option.
I
guess my best bet may be to get a PCMCIA ethernet port card,per your last
suggestion.


You can get a serial port-to-USB adapter fairly cheap:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/o8qejcj

I have this one that I bought to connect my automobile code reader to my PC
so I can D/L the data logs. Works well for that anyhow :-)

There are also ethernet-to-serial adapters. We used those for telnet-ing
into our routers for flash updates and programming. Don't know how well that
would work in your circumstance, though.
--
SC Tom

Paul wrote in :


"Laptop 2.5" to Desktop 3.5" IDE Hard Drive Adapter Converter" $2.36
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16812119245

"Cables To Go Laptop to IDE Hard Drive Adapter Cable - 2.5" Laptop to
3.5" Desktop" $4.99
http://www.canadacomputers.com/produ...item_id=016080

The reason I list two of them, is I could order one online for 2.36
plus shipping, or drive to a brick and mortar store like the second
entry, and get it today for $5.

Great suggestion - thanks. I have ordered such an adapter today and hope
it arrives by Saturday. It may be my best option.



In terms of "exposures" with such an adapter, the pins on the adapter
can be bent, if you're not careful. Some of the older 80 wire IDE
cables have reasonably lubricated connectors and won't fight too much.
I have some more modern IDE cables with higher insertion force. The
adapter doesn't give any protection to the pins. (Some other IDE
connector formats have the plastic box around the pins to protect
them.)

The power connector is the other weak point. The pins in the connector
will flop around, so you have to wiggle them a bit to get the power
connector in your USB housing, to mesh with the adapter power
connector. The adapter power connector only has two pins, because the
small laptop drives just use the +5V power source. Whereas, the larger
3.5" drives use both +5V and +12V, and have a couple ground pins as
well. That's why the adapter doesn't have all the pins on its power
connector. They're not needed.

You can probably find a pinout diagram online, to understand why the
44 pin and 40 pin, not all the pins get connected. The extra pins
on the 44 pin were intended for power, which is why the power cable
goes on the pins on one end of the connector.

This could be useful to know. Much appreciated!

*******

A cheaper still solution, would depend on materials on hand. I have a
collection of RS232 cabling, null modem cables, male to female
adapters, 9 to 25 pin adapters, the works. My bag of junk is probably
worth a hundred bucks at one time. I used to use that to get myself
out of a jam at work, but I've also used it to join balky computers
together here at home. For example, I can boot a Linux computer, point
the console port output to the serial port, then use Hyperterm on the
Windows PC, to talk to the Linux computer. If the Linux computer has a
bug and freezes, I can then use the Hyperterm port to test whether the
machine is responsive. This is typically used if Xwindows has a
focus/selection bug (and the GUI freezes), or dbus dies and the
mouse/keyboard on the Linux machine stop working. Frequently, the CPU
is still running, and all that is needed is a working software path.

So if you had another computer with a serial port, you'd need a
"rolled" cable (null modem cable), so the tx and rx get flipped from
one end of the cable to the other. As far as I can remember, a regular
cable is intended for connection between a DCE and a DTE. To connect
two similar devices (two computers over serial port), you need a null
modem dongle to swap the wiring. Once that is done, two computers can
be connected together, and talk over Hyperterm.


I remember doing the above once, back in the days when all PCs had serial
ports. Unfortunately my presnt PC doesn't have one, but I may have an old
PC buried in the garage buried under tons of junk...


But that's the weak part of this plan. You have no way to get software
into the computer. No working network connection. The floppy used to
be your "port of entry", but it is broken.

The laptop does have a CD-rom drive, so I can get executables onto the
laptop this way.



It's possible to set up networking over IRDA.

I wondered about that - but, like you, I've never used an IRDA port
before.



I've never used
an IRDA port, so don't know the details. There are USB to IRDA
dongles to plug into a modern PC, to give you a "receiving end"
on the other PC. There may be a red plastic lens or aperture
on the Armada.

That is a possibility. I may have a search for some kind of user manual
on how to use the IRDA feature of the laptop.

The fun part, is data rate. A proper (good) IRDA runs at 4Mbit/sec.
Which is 0.5MB/sec. That would give a painful but useful transfer
rate, to get off a few valuable files.

The motherboards I have here, came with IRDA headers, but they
use the slower rate. I think the best those motherboard ones
could manage, is 115Kbit/sec. Which is really not all that much
better than a modem. The main advantage, is if the OS happens
to have a TCP/IP stack to run over IRDA.

(only if you're interested)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_Data_Association

I'm grateful that you mentioned that; I think I may have one of those
dongles somewhere!



Does Win95 have file sharing ? Working on that method, would
only be worthwhile if you knew for sure the whole protocol stack
was present. Just too many details.

*******

They made ZIP drives with parallel connectors on them.

YES! That's a VERY good point! I could buy one of those on ebay for about
$10...


So right now, from this distance, the $5 adapter purchased
from a local computer store is looking the most practical.
if you pay yourself $5 an hour to work on computers, I cannot
imagine any of the other methods being done in an hour. You'd
need to do at least an hour's worth of online research first.


That's the thing! Whenever I have gotten into dismantling my desktop in
order to achieve something, I find I end up using up loads of time, so I
always try and find ready-made solutions that you just plug-in and use.
Your zip drive suggestion strikes me as being a quick and easy option,
albeit slightly more expensive than the IDE adapter suggestion.

One way of another, I will get that data off the laptop, and now feel
confident that it can be done without too much more time-consuming
fiddling around and gambling away my loose change!

Many thanks indeed for your detailed and helpful input. This newsgroup
seems to be as excellent as it ever was! A fine tradition upheld... Long
may it go on!

Al

VanguardLH wrote in :


If there aren't many files and not too big, just e-mail them as
attachments to yourself.

Thank you. Yes, this had accurred to me as an option. If I can get hold of
a PCMCIA-ethernet adapter and successfully get it working on the laptop, I
will do that. Otherwise I will pull the hard drive and connect it to an old
IDE desktop, if I can find the one I think I have somewhere.

Much appreciated...

Al

"SC Tom" wrote in :

You can get a serial port-to-USB adapter fairly cheap:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/o8qejcj

I have one - but could not find a driver that will work under Windows 98.
There is one that claims to work under W98SE - but it doesn't!


I have this one that I bought to connect my automobile code reader to
my PC so I can D/L the data logs. Works well for that anyhow :-)

There are also ethernet-to-serial adapters. We used those for
telnet-ing into our routers for flash updates and programming. Don't
know how well that would work in your circumstance, though.

One thing I do have is a PCMCIA 56K modem (minus the cable). Does anyone
know if it is still possible to access the internet using TCP/IP (dial-up
protocol, as per the days of yore)? That is, via a typical 21st century
broadband internet provider...?

Al

Paul wrote in :


It's possible to set up networking over IrDA. I've never used
an IRDA port, so don't know the details.



The old Compaq 4220T laptop in question, has infrared (IrDA), and so does
my Nokia e90 mobile phone. In theory, I should be able to transfer the
required files from the laptop's hard drive onto the E90 phone. The phone
has as a micro-SD card, so I can plug the micro-SD card into my desktop PC
and transfer the files that way, after the files are transferred onto the
phone's sd card.

However, it seems easier said than done; I have IR switched on, on both
devices, but the the laptop is not finding the phone even though it's in
close range. Do the IR ports have to be within eyesight of each other? I
cannot find any kind of IR lense or suchlike on either device. According to
the laptop's user manual at:

http://tinyurl.com/p4c9v9w

, the laptop should detect the phone and then automatically transfer the
necessary transfer software from it (I think). But it isn't happening.
Laptop says "no infrared devics within range".

Al

"AL_n" wrote in news:XnsA3EBAD644D40Azzzzzz@
130.133.4.11:

, the laptop should detect the phone and then automatically transfer the
necessary transfer software from it (I think). But it isn't happening.
Laptop says "no infrared devics within range".


PS.. it would help if I could find the actual physical IR sender/receiver
on either device, but I can't... Weird! I'm not familiar with IrDA, but
shouldn't there be some kind of red light-emitting LED or something visible
on the phone and/or the laptop?

Al

"AL_n" wrote in
:

"AL_n" wrote in news:XnsA3EBAD644D40Azzzzzz@
130.133.4.11:

, the laptop should detect the phone and then automatically transfer
the necessary transfer software from it (I think). But it isn't
happening. Laptop says "no infrared devics within range".


PS.. it would help if I could find the actual physical IR
sender/receiver on either device, but I can't... Weird! I'm not
familiar with IrDA, but shouldn't there be some kind of red
light-emitting LED or something visible on the phone and/or the
laptop?

Al


PS... Okay, I have located the IR port on each device (black shiny thing).
Now I'm getting somewhere... Stay tuned..

Al

AL_n wrote:
"AL_n" wrote in
:

"AL_n" wrote in news:XnsA3EBAD644D40Azzzzzz@
130.133.4.11:

, the laptop should detect the phone and then automatically transfer
the necessary transfer software from it (I think). But it isn't
happening. Laptop says "no infrared devics within range".

PS.. it would help if I could find the actual physical IR
sender/receiver on either device, but I can't... Weird! I'm not
familiar with IrDA, but shouldn't there be some kind of red
light-emitting LED or something visible on the phone and/or the
laptop?

Al


PS... Okay, I have located the IR port on each device (black shiny thing).
Now I'm getting somewhere... Stay tuned..

Al

Years ago, I got an "IR converter strip" from Radio Shack.
It was around $5 or so. It is a strip of stiff plastic, with
a "brown patch" on one end. You "charge up" the strip by holding
it next to an incandescent light (presumably energetic UV from
the light, does the charging).

Then, you hold the IR strip next to the lens of the optical
device, to "sniff" for infrared. For example, TV remotes,
you can see them pulse when the button on the remote is
pushed. The brown patch gives off visible light, after
it is charged, and then the strip is hit by the infrared.
It's a means to make infrared visible.

*******

A second way to debug infrared, is with silicon based cameras.
I have a surveillance camera that can pick up infrared, as the
sensitivity goes out into the infrared. That camera happens to
be a black and white camera. I can see the pulsations of a TV
remote with the surveillance camera. You could search for the
infrared emitter that way.

Color surveillance cameras, have an infrared filter on the
optical path. This is for "color balance" in sunlight. Still,
you might be able to spot a light source with the camera,
even if it is filtering a lot of the infrared light.

I did a search on "IRDA wavelength", and a patent mentions 875nm.
I think a silicon camera can see out to 1100nm or so.

This is an example of an IR illuminator, for a parking lot.
This one emits at 850nm, so the LEDs here would be similar
to the IRDA ones. Unlike an incandescent lamp with an IR gel
filter over it, a human shouldn't be able to see this. That's
why they're using infrared. The old fashioned illuminators,
you could see a dull red glow if you looked into the thing.

http://www.supercircuits.com/accesso...luminator-ir34

LEDs don't have a very sharp output wavelength, so when I say
850nm, the optical peak is a bit on the broad side. Unlike a laser,
which has a very narrow ("pure") color. The LEDs are sloppy.

You should hold the devices within a foot of one another,
with optical ports facing, for best results. If there is
any question about the health or power level of one of them,
that might help. And hope they both have the protocol stack
to talk to one another.

Have fun,
Paul

Paul wrote in :

Then, you hold the IR strip next to the lens of the optical
device, to "sniff" for infrared. For example, TV remotes,
you can see them pulse when the button on the remote is
pushed. The brown patch gives off visible light, after
it is charged, and then the strip is hit by the infrared.
It's a means to make infrared visible.


Fascinating! I think I was confused because the IR emitters on my security
cameras at home are actually visible, but I guess that's so that burglars
have something they can visibly see. The IR emitters on my phone and old
laptop are obviously using true (invisible) IR.

Anyway, I am ustterly elated!!!! I have done what I needed to do!

I had no luck transferring the files using my Nokia E90 phone, but my old
HTC Blue Angel phone, running Windows Mobile was what did work, (after a
lot of trial and error and device-jiggling, puzzling and fretting! When the
IR connection was finally set up, all of my three critical Word files
transferred accross within about three minutes!

Getting these vital files onto my desktop has saved me a massive amount of
work! Best of all, it cost me nothing and took me a mere hour or so to do.
And I evern learned something useful in the process: how easy to transfer
files using IR or bluetooth.

WOOOHOOOOOOOOOO!!! (as Homer, the famous Greek philosopher said)

Thanks so much to all who advised on this one. I am so relieved!!

Al