This type of thing has probably been asked before. The harddrive on an old Pentium II 233 PC seems to be failing. It makes a lot of noise and can only function in safe mode, and of course that mode means nothing much will work. That PC has a network card. Is it possible to hook up my good PC to the old one via an ethernet cable and access files on the old PC considering it only seems to function in safe mode now?

Will a new harddrive from Egghead make the old PC usable? Can I copy my Windows XP onto the new drive via the ethernet connection?

A new hard drive will make the old one usable. You probably will have to get a smaller drive, since your mobo probably won't be able to read a hard drive with more than sixty gigs on it (but that's just speculation on my part. I'd wait for a tech-head to come along and give you the definite answer). I think XP's minimum requirements to run far exceed Pentium II capabilities. I think you need to go back to 98. You may not even be able to run 2000. Personally, if it can run, I'd go with NT. Sure it's big and slow, but it's pretty damn stable.
Anyway, to get stuff off the old hard drive that way, you would have to have the system configured to be able to be run through an external source. So I think you'd have to set it up that way, which you may not be able to do in safe mode. Plus it depends on what OS you're running and stuff. What are you running on that computer? XP, 98, 95?

XP is on the good PC. Maybe I will just try it and see what happens. I am afraid I threw out my copy of Windows 95. I think I still have the upgrade to Windows 98 though. It is less trouble just to buy a new PC, but that drive does have a small library of mp3's I would like to salvage. I really don't want to put that damaged HD into my good PC to see in I can then transfer stuff.

I thought Betty might want a piece of this thread. :mad:

Win 98 is better than 95. XP is probably a little too resource hungry for an older PC. Get the stuff off the old drive as quickly as possible if you think it is bad.

XP is on the good PC. Maybe I will just try it and see what happens. I am afraid I threw out my copy of Windows 95. I think I still have the upgrade to Windows 98 though. It is less trouble just to buy a new PC, but that drive does have a small library of mp3's I would like to salvage. I really don't want to put that damaged HD into my good PC to see in I can then transfer stuff.

If you put it in as a slave in your new PC, you shouldn't have any problems, except that your primary HD will state that it has read errors or something of the sort. But try it that way.

Thanks. Not sure if I will try it. I might just get a cheapy new PC as a secondary machine.

Well, if all you want to do is get the mp3s, then I would just put it in your new computer, get those off of it, and toss the hard drive. Do you really need a secondary computer?

Good point, maybe I will give it a try.

you can always get an external drive enclosure and stick your old drive in there.
then just plug it into your usb port on your new machine and copy your stuff off.
and an external usb hard drive is a good place to store your recording projects too.

I am a little hesitant to put a defective drive in a good machine even just temporarily so I will look into that.

It's the same thing. A defective drive shouldn't cause problems. Then again, if it's a virus that did it, that might be an issue. Your choice, duder.

I am a little hesitant to put a defective drive in a good machine even just temporarily so I will look into that. it wont cause any problems. ive done it before, and could get all my files.

There were actually 2 hard drives in there. Throungh trial and error I identified the bad one. Fortunately it was the original 2 Gig POS that didn't have much on it. I removed it, pulled out the jumpers for the master/slave setup and now the 20 Gig HD, the other one in there, works as the primary drive. So I went ahead and burned the old mp3's onto CD's to transfer over.

Dude, the f'n CD burned on the old PC suck and are unreadable on the old PC and the newer PC.

That made no sense.

I got Windows 98 working on the old PC. In an attempt to burn some files off the old PC onto the CD burned connected to it, the resulting CD is unreadable by both the old PC and the newer PC.

I tried hooking up a cable modem to the old PC and that didn't work. :(

Did you try a new CD? It might have been a problem with the CD itself.

Thanks, yeah, I tried 2 different ones. :(

Does it come up with a read error when you put it in? Like does it say it can't read the disk? Or does it even see that there's a disk in the drive?
Also, what exactly are you trying to burn? If it's music, are you sure it doesn't have some sort of write protection that screws up the CD so that you end up wasting a CD out of spite or something (totally out there guess with no basis in anything in reality).

I forget the error window that comes up, but it is like "drive not accessible" and does not let it be read. I have done the exact procedure of copying files onto CD from the old to the new on the same machines a few months back. :shrug:

thats strange.

I forget the error window that comes up, but it is like "drive not accessible" and does not let it be read. I have done the exact procedure of copying files onto CD from the old to the new on the same machines a few months back. :shrug:

Sounds more like it doesn't like your drive. Hmm, ask Betty or Gibson or one of those techie guys. I really don't know where to go from here.

What CD burning software were you using? Try burning at a slower speed, you could be getting buffer underruns. Did you remember to CLOSE the CD after you're done? You have to close the CD when you're done burning it in order for the TOC/JOLIET is right :shrug:

I think it is a version of Nero.

Okay, that still doesn't work but hooking to the internet doesn't work. I plug a good ethernet connection to it and it can never find any servers. :(

plug you old drive into the new machine, if that isn't readable, i.e as drive E or whatever kiss you shit goodbye:D