[REQUEST] MS-DOS replace HDD mirror image not working?

[Markverhyden]

VM? All depends on what else is going on. Is there a printer or till attached? Getting device pass through on a DOS VM is not that simple. And do you have at least two backups of this?

 

[Sky-Knight]

DOSBox isn't virtual, that's not even a thing... DOSBox is an application that emulates DOS, not the same deal.

Now, you could boot the machine to clonezilla, or use an IDE to USB adapter to attach the IDE drive to a machine, boot that to Clonezilla, image the disk to an image file. Then make a VM in VirtualBox / VMWare Player / Hyper-V / Whatever, and use Clonezilla to restore the image into the VM. THAT would be virtualizing it...

But running the DOS application in DOSBox? That's not virtualization, that's simply building a new DOS environment. And to do so successfully requires knowledge of DOS itself. Given the OP doesn't have that knowledge, he's better off taking a different path.

Also, good luck getting either an LPT port, or serial port into and out of DOSBox, I've been down that road many times, it's never ended well. That's why I use desktop virtualization for these project when they pop up, more stable.

Clonezilla is the only imaging solution I know of that still supports all DOS filesystems and partition types. Modern solutions simply don't always work.

P.S. Those were step by step instructions, to get more detailed would require me to make a training program.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

but buried in the middle of the thread is an interesting suggestion to use a 2GB CF card with a CF-to-IDE adapter as a replacement for the original hard drive.

So I'm thinking, please correct if wrong.

I order a 2GB CF card & CF to IDE adapter.

I take the original dying drive out and plug in both IDE devices into my Win10 workbench, use my disk cloning software and clone.

What do I choose in my cloning software?

1. Align partitions to 1 MB.
   • Checked
   • unchecked
2. partition size.
   • keep partition sizes.
   • resize partition to fit disk.

Then in the perfect world I live in. The CF/IDE drive should be plug and play?

I've never even touched anything this old before.. Bloody weird. I want my Win10 problems back!!!


I did ask the owner, he does not have anything with DOS or the software on it... So all I got to work with is that computer...

 

[Sky-Knight]

In this case it's a distinction without a difference. They're both a magic box on a big computer with a little computer inside.

(Did I mention that I used to write CPU emulation software for a living? Windows NT on MIPS, JIT compilation of x86 code into 680x0, that kind of thing? I know the difference, and it's really not important here.)

Except it does matter, because that's not virtualization. DOSBox files are stored in a folder on the parent system not in a partitioned space, which means possible interference from applications on the host platform. Modern AV + DOS apps = problems.

And I don't recall if it was LPT ports or serial ports... but one of the two flat doesn't work in DOSBox, I don't care what the features and documentation says... given this was listed as a POS system, I have to assume getting stable RS232 and parallel connectivity into and out of that environment would be essential to making it over the finish line.

There are linux packages that make DOS apps natively executable on those platforms too, so you could even build a Debian or Ubuntu install to do this... but that's even MORE black magic.

Or, you just image the failing drive off, image it back into a VM, use the VM tools to map the ports you need to the devices, and the only thing you're left hunting for is an USB to RS232 adapter that actually works. And when you're done you've actually virtualized the platform fully, so it can be moved around, and converted into different virtual platforms with modern tools without issue.

Or you can watch the next DOSBox patch break your work... your choice.

 

[Sky-Knight]

So I'm thinking, please correct if wrong.

I order a 2GB CF card & CF to IDE adapter.

I take the original dying drive out and plug in both IDE devices into my Win10 workbench, use my disk cloning software and clone.

What do I choose in my cloning software?

1. Align partitions to 1 MB.
   • Checked
   • unchecked
2. partition size.
   • keep partition sizes.
   • resize partition to fit disk.

Then in the perfect world I live in. The CF/IDE drive should be plug and play?

I've never even touched anything this old before.. Bloody weird. I want my Win10 problems back!!!

That's actually not a bad idea... and yes, DOS doesn't have a HAL so it doesn't care what hardware it's on. You'd just image from one disk to the new, and that CF card will probably live 50 years.

The hard part of all of this is figuring out the jumper settings to connect the devices to an old IDE controller. It's not hard, but you have two ribbon cables, master is on the end, slave is in the middle. Set the jumpers appropriately and DO NOT USE CABLE SELECT!

You'll need to connect the CF assembly as a slave to get the imaging done, then reset it to master and move the cable.

 

[Mr. Ingram's Computer Repair & Shoppe]

But I still think virtualizing (or emulatorizing) is a neater solution.

I don't want neater.. I want easy with high profit margin and something that'll just work so I don't have to be near DOS ever again. If he wasn't a friend, I'd of already run far from it....

 

[sapphirescales]

I want easy with high profit margin and something that'll just work so I don't have to be near DOS ever again.

Come on! DOS is fun! You're not having the right attitude. And getting it all working on original hardware is fun too! I highly recommend the CF flash card route. It's worked for me on many occasions. I do NOT recommend running this on 20+ year old hard drives, but the CF card route was pretty fun to set up and it runs beautifully once you get it all set up.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Yeah CF card is great, until the mainboard lets go...

These systems are so old at this point that the plastic and metal mounts holding the CPU coolers together are snapping due to age. Virtualizing it just means you can run this on modern hardware.

But doesn't matter what you do, you are going to learn DOS to make it work. The closest you're going to get to not knowing is the CF trick, and even then you're going to have to learn how IDE works, because SATA has made you fat and lazy.

Just be glad it isn't MFM or RLL.

 

[Markverhyden]

The real solution to this is to get them off of this ancient technology. They're a dry cleaner. How many sku's could they have? 10? 20? Heck, they can order a card swipe for free and setup and run their POS for free on a smartphone or tablet using Square POS. The only cost is the merchant fee for CC payments, which they are already paying. You can buy entire tablet based POS systems, including till and printer, for a few hundred USD. I'm sure you can probably figure out a way to export the data if they want the history.

 

[sapphirescales]

The real solution to this is to get them off of this ancient technology. They're a dry cleaner. How many sku's could they have? 10? 20? Heck, they can order a card swipe for free and setup and run their POS for free on a smartphone or tablet using Square POS. The only cost is the merchant fee for CC payments, which they are already paying. You can buy entire tablet based POS systems, including till and printer, for a few hundred USD. I'm sure you can probably figure out a way to export the data if they want the history.

There's value in fixing what they have. Having to retrain employees, and buy new hardware that you KNOW won't last more than a couple of years (whereas their last system lasted 20) doesn't make sense if they can get their current solution fixed for a reasonable price. Buy a backup system for parts in case something other than the hard drive fails and keep on rollin.'

 

[seedubya]

I have an undertakers running DOS software. It was on a 386SX25 up until last year when a power surge killed the supply and we couldn't find a replacement. Virtualised it in DOSBox and it's been running ever since without issue.

 

[mikeroq]

I've gone the DOSBox route before. The worst one was someone who was using a super old version of CYMA. I used DOSBox megabuild for printing support. The issue was that the printing was designed for a dot matrix printer but I could just not get that working right. Ended up printing to their laser. To get it printing correctly used Printfil, but the pages wouldn't come out properly aligned. IE: If a page was only half a page the next page would start on the same page. Thankfully everything that printed started out with their company name. Made an autoit program to scan the text file that dosbox outputted and split up the pages at the header. Thankfully they finally moved on to Quickbooks.

I would either:
a) Download DOS 6.22, install new drive, fdisk make a small partition a few GB, format, install DOS. Reboot make sure system boots to DOS successfully. Either slave old drive into machine, or slave both drives into bench machine and copy all the files from the old to new. Should boot up and work.
b) Replace with a new or refurbished computer running DOSBox or Virtualbox.

Another customer has Statistica very old DOS version. He runs multiple ancient laptops with DOS/Win 3.1/Win 95/98 to run this software. Fixed a couple laptops but I could not get the software to run on a couple others. Tying to launch it would say "Starting CSS..." and just sit there. I did get it working in DOSBox (or maybe it was VirtualBOX. I think it was DOSBox). So he could run it in Windows 10. But he still has a Thinkpad 701C sitting next to his newer laptop running DOS.

 

[Markverhyden]

There's value in fixing what they have. Having to retrain employees, and buy new hardware that you KNOW won't last more than a couple of years (whereas their last system lasted 20) doesn't make sense if they can get their current solution fixed for a reasonable price. Buy a backup system for parts in case something other than the hard drive fails and keep on rollin.'

It all depends on the EU, we don't know what their current setup is. If they insisted on a repair, I'e got the time if they've got the money. But I'd have been all over them about replacement with a tablet system. I've got Square customers who've been using their's for over 5 years. I've still got my original reader, which has been laundered several times (LOL), works just fine after 7 years. Training is trivial.

 

[fencepost]

There are advantages to just having the system as-is as well. Not going to get infected with something. No employees surfing. Computer misuse? What computer? That's not a computer is it?

I'm also on the "virtualize it" group though. My immediate reaction was "Wait, where's the jumper to cap the drive to 2GB capacity?" because yes, I remember those things and having to check whether it was going to be possible to update my personal laptop from 1.6GB to a whopping 3.2.

Actually I may still have that laptop somewhere around here......

 

[Porthos]

Has any one thought about the size of the new drive? (320gig) If I remember correctly, that Dos could not see or use a drive/partition that big.

Try imaging to a 40 or 80 gig drive if you can find one laying around.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ahh...memories of Artisoft LANtastic, replacing T-bars and terminator caps a lot, and drive overlays for old DOS on newer drives.
And constantly tweaking config.sys getting conventional memory as high as possible.