USB won't work on one computer

[Irwin]

Speaking of dumb questions, here is mine. I have an external USB drive
and ghost boot floppy. This combination works on all my other machines
except this really old one. The DOS drivers can find the native USB
adapter and replies with "adapter found" (not a PC card), but will not
find the drive that is plugged in. In bios, I see something for USB
legacy keyboard, which is disabled. I see nothing else in the bios that
sounds USBish. I am using the USB1 floppy drivers. Any ideas?

Irwin

 

[Arno Wagner]

Speaking of dumb questions, here is mine. I have an external USB drive
and ghost boot floppy. This combination works on all my other machines
except this really old one. The DOS drivers can find the native USB
adapter and replies with "adapter found" (not a PC card), but will not
find the drive that is plugged in. In bios, I see something for USB
legacy keyboard, which is disabled. I see nothing else in the bios that
sounds USBish. I am using the USB1 floppy drivers. Any ideas?

If the drivers find the adapter, it should work. BIOS support
is not needed if you have drivers.

Maybe the adapter is defect?

Arno

 

[Rod Speed]

Speaking of dumb questions, here is mine. I have an external
USB drive and ghost boot floppy. This combination works on
all my other machines except this really old one. The DOS drivers
can find the native USB adapter and replies with "adapter found"
(not a PC card), but will not find the drive that is plugged in.

Try it with the ghost 9 CD to see if the drive is visible on that PC.

Its using PE, not DOS.

You sure the drive is getting enough power ? Should be fine
if the drive has external power and isnt being powered from
the USB cable. If its being powered from the USB cable, it
may not be getting enough power with that dinosaur.

In bios, I see something for USB
legacy keyboard, which is disabled.

Not relevant. That only controls whether the bios
looks for a USB keyboard at boot time so you can
do the basic bios setting stuff using a USB keyboard.

I see nothing else in the bios that sounds USBish.
I am using the USB1 floppy drivers. Any ideas?

I'd check if the drive is visible at the win level or with True Image
etc to check the basics on the USB drive in that dinosaur first.

 

[Irwin]

Hello all. This is a very old computer which is running NT 4.0, which
as you know does not support USB. Which is why I need to boot from
floppy or CD. It's a long story, but the short version is that
Microsoft is no longer supporting NT, so the network guys at work have
kicked all NT boxes from the network, so I am trying to use the USB
drive to backup the data and move it off. But can't use windows NT to
do it, and have never been able to use USB on the box so I don't know
if the ports or adapters have ever worked. The drive is externally
powered. I can try installing another partition with another version of
windows, just didn't want to take the time or risk doing it without
backing up the data first. Maybe I will try the Ghost 9 CD, which I
own, or maybe a linux livecd or other windows rescue disk which I also
have but haven't bothered learning how to use. I guess we will start
with the ghost 9 CD. I will let you know how it goes.

Irwin

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello all. This is a very old computer which is running NT 4.0, which
as you know does not support USB. Which is why I need to boot from
floppy or CD. It's a long story, but the short version is that
Microsoft is no longer supporting NT, so the network guys at work have
kicked all NT boxes from the network, so I am trying to use the USB
drive to backup the data and move it off. But can't use windows NT to
do it, and have never been able to use USB on the box so I don't know
if the ports or adapters have ever worked.

Yeah, that's obviously the first thing to check.

The drive is externally powered.

OK, that eliminates the main problem, the drive not getting enough power.

I can try installing another partition with another
version of windows, just didn't want to take the
time or risk doing it without backing up the data first.
True.

Maybe I will try the Ghost 9 CD, which I own,

That would be worth trying as a quick check of the
viability of the USB port, but it wont allow you to image
the drive, you have to install it to create an image.

True Image would be better, it will create an
image when booted from the CD and would be
ideal in your situation if it will actually boot on
that dinosaur and can see the USB drive on it.

or maybe a linux livecd or other windows rescue disk which
I also have but haven't bothered learning how to use.

Or knoppix. There's a pretty decent manual for that now.

I guess we will start with the ghost 9 CD.
I will let you know how it goes.

Yeah, I'd like to know the outcome, too rare in my opinion.

 

[Al Dykes]

Yeah, that's obviously the first thing to check.


OK, that eliminates the main problem, the drive not getting enough power.


That would be worth trying as a quick check of the
viability of the USB port, but it wont allow you to image
the drive, you have to install it to create an image.

True Image would be better, it will create an
image when booted from the CD and would be
ideal in your situation if it will actually boot on
that dinosaur and can see the USB drive on it.


Or knoppix. There's a pretty decent manual for that now.


Yeah, I'd like to know the outcome, too rare in my opinion.

I wouldn't trust an external drive on an old computer. Get a cheap IDE
drive that's bigger than your NT disks, plug it into an IDE controller
and do your backup disk-to-disk. You can then plug the disk into your
new machine and recover your data.

Boot a CD image backup product (I like acronis) and copy all your
disks to images.

On the new machine you can recover your data. Acronis allows you to
"mount" images as file systems so you can recover individual
files/folders.

 

[Rod Speed]

I wouldn't trust an external drive on an old computer. Get
a cheap IDE drive that's bigger than your NT disks, plug
it into an IDE controller and do your backup disk-to-disk.

Thats not completely trouble free either with those old
dinosaurs, particularly on what size drives they support.

You can then plug the disk into your
new machine and recover your data.

 

[Al Dykes]

Thats not completely trouble free either with those old
dinosaurs, particularly on what size drives they support.

The limit that most people know of is just for the boot
partition. You've always been able to put larger disks on the
secondary.

 

[Rod Speed]

The limit that most people know of is just for the boot partition.
You've always been able to put larger disks on the secondary.

Fraid not.

 

[Eric Gisin]

Do you have more than one USB controller? Ghost 8 may only see the first.

You want to test the USB port with something simple like a mouse. A WinPE CD
will do, but I can't think of anything that fits on a floppy.

 

[J. Clarke]

The limit that most people know of is just for the boot
partition. You've always been able to put larger disks on the
secondary.

For certain values of "larger". Staples has 250 gig drives on sale this
week for $129.95, but don't count on them giving you more than 32 gig on a
machine of that vintage without a new host adapter.

FWIW, this might be a job for BartPE <http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/>.