serial or parallel direct cable connection without direct connect on one computer...

Hi.


I have a winxp pc and a win98 laptop without floppy, cd etc, and the
windows 98 does not have direct connect progam installed, with no way
to install it.


I have a serial cable to connect the two, but is there any program that

can remote initiate a connection like laplink could do in the days of
DOS? I can't install it on the laptop, in fact I can't do much with
the laptop until I can find some way to put data on it.


I would be very grateful for any suggestions.


Thanks,
lab.

 

Try buying a usb external CD or floppy. If 98 won't recognize that then
there were many parallel port external CD-Rom units out there as well. Also
you might try getting a PCMCIA one of either type. Another thing you could
do is pull the drive, and put it in an external USB unit that connects to
the XP box. Then copy the 98 install cd into a directory. Then put back
the drive and use that to install the direct connect software.

 

: Hi.

: I have a winxp pc and a win98 laptop without floppy, cd etc, and the
: windows 98 does not have direct connect progam installed, with no way
: to install it.

: I have a serial cable to connect the two, but is there any program that

: can remote initiate a connection like laplink could do in the days of
: DOS? I can't install it on the laptop, in fact I can't do much with
: the laptop until I can find some way to put data on it.

: I would be very grateful for any suggestions.

Does the Win98 computer have an Ethernet (network) card? Assuming the
XP computer also does, you can connect the two computers with a
Crossover cable, a special ethernet cable used to make a simple
network without a router. You need to assign an IP address to each
computer (for example 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.3). Of course Win98
will probably want to reboot with each little change.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
*******************************************************************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
*******************************************************************

 

Find an old version of laplink (for MS-DOS, not windows ... I'm talking
early 1990's software here). It had a way of "self-installing" after
you used DEBUG to enter a very short binary program by hand in hex on
the keyboard (less than 20 bytes, and when you inititate the process on
the "host", it tells you exactly, keystroke for keystroke, what to enter
on the client). It then "bootstraps itself" and you end up with a
mid-level file transfer system between the two machines.

The other option is to temporarily remove the hard drive from the laptop
and use another PC to transfer files onto it.

Serial is going to be hopelessly slow, you need to upgrade to an
Ethernet network interconnection.

 

He says he has no floppy, no CD and ... VERY IMPORTANTLY ... no way to
install DCC, which implies that the cabinet files are not on the PC.
That precludes almost everything (even plugging in a network card will
want access to either a Windows 98 CD or the equivalent cabinet files),
and leaves him very few options, one of which is removing the hard drive
and adding the necessary files with the hard drive connected to another
PC. Another option, which I discussed, is an old MS-DOS version of
laplink, which could "self boot" onto a PC that didn't have it.

 

Thanks for the suggestions, people.

Unfortunately, it's old, so no usb.

Ethernet on laptop, not PC. Though about getting a cheapo PCMCIA
modem card and uploading, downloading required stuff, but it would have
to be truely plug and play, as no drivers can be installed.

Richard's ideas sound expensive, I don't really want to buy a CD drive
just to do this, and this USB laptop hard drive adaptor thing sounds
pricey too.

You're right Barry, the cab files aren't on the hard disk (grr).

I don't think laptop hard drive are compatible with IDE, but I'll open
it up to check.

Serial cables all I got, anyway I don't think the self install laplink
worked with parallel, only serial. Slow isn't a problem, although I
guess we're talking floppy disc speed!...

The laplink route sounds the best. I'll have to boot the winxp pc into
dos and try it.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.
lab.

 

: Thanks for the suggestions, people.

: Unfortunately, it's old, so no usb.

: Ethernet on laptop, not PC. Though about getting a cheapo PCMCIA
: modem card and uploading, downloading required stuff, but it would have
: to be truely plug and play, as no drivers can be installed.

: Richard's ideas sound expensive, I don't really want to buy a CD drive
: just to do this, and this USB laptop hard drive adaptor thing sounds
: pricey too.

Not necessarily. Where I live, you can buy a USB enclosure for 2.5"
drives for about $30, maybe less. Where I live, Fry's Electronics
sometimes even has them on sale for free (about $25 plus a rebate) now
and again. The trick with an older laptop might be actually getting
the hard drive out.

As to the network approach: maybe you are lucky and TCP/IP is already
installed in Windows 98 on it? Then you might be able to assign an IP
manually to the NIC and not need the Win98 cab files? If that works,
you could surely find a way to get a NIC card on the desktop
computer. Even find a USB to ethernet adaptor or something like that.

Andrew
--
----> Portland, Oregon, USA <----
*******************************************************************
----> http://www.bizave.com <---- Photo Albums and Portland Info
----> To Email me remove "MYSHOES" from email address
*******************************************************************

 

If you have ethernet on the laptop, then get a card for the desktop for
$5, or get a USB to Ethernet adapter for the desktop for about $10 to
$15. That is clearly the way to go.

***ALL*** laptop hard drives can be connected to a desktop IDE port (40
(or 80) conductor IDE hard drive cable) with a $5 adapter:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=HD-108&cat=HDD

You add the desired files (the .CAB files if there is room for them) on
the desktop, then put the drive back into the laptop.

Windows XP doesn't boot into DOS. You will need another machine running
Windows 98.

 

You can buy a USB enclosure for a 2.5" hard drive for $12 to $15. There
are hundreds of them on E-Bay, they usually sell real cheap (99 cents,
sometimes) with very high shipping charges relative to what they weigh
($10 to $15 shipping). This is the seller's way of "cheating" E-Bay out
of it's commission (E-Bay gets a % of the selling price but not of the
shipping charge).

Functionally, this is equivalent to using a laptop drive IDE adapter.
It's a bit more expensive, it's more convenient, it's a bit less
compatible if there are any "abnormalities" in the drive setup, but it
would work in probably more than 95% of cases.

 

I'm gonna go with the ethernet option - they are cheap, and at least
getting ethernet for the desktop will be useful in the future. I'll
have to pay out for the dable, but it should be a $10 dollar cost, or
thereabouts.

WinXP (and WinME?) don't do DOS (but you can use a bootable CD to get
DOS.)

Thanks for clearing up the ebay thing, I always wondered why the
shipping was so obviously rigged. I just stay away from obvious rip
offs, I guess other people don't!

 

Don't you have Norton Commander?
It is great for that sort of thing as long as
you can boot both machines to Dos.

Connect the two computers with laplink
cables, serial is what you need this time
..
Start NC on the one where you can install it.
Go to "Link", set up which port you use
and that this machine will be "master",
follow the instructions on screen and hit
the "clone" button.

That will transfer enough of NC to the other
machine to initiate the link.

You need NC 4 or 5. The earliest ones won't do.
(You can actually trim NC 4 down to fit on a
floppy if you have to.)
In the Dos days Norton Commander was a man's
best friend.



Lars
Stockholm

 

I ended up using laplink. It was hidden on the laptop, so I am moving
the direct connect cab over. Norton commander is great, I'm sure, but
I already have laplink.

Thanks for the suggestion Lars.

I guess for anyone else in this situation, remote install with laplink
or norton commander is the best option, though you need a serial cable
(hopefully not too expensive). Didn't work, the remote install with
laplink when I tried it, but hopefully anyone else will have better
luck.

 

And the best solution (as was recommended above) is to be brave, open
the laptop, and use the hard drive with a IDE USB adaptor, about $13,
which is good for adding extra (slow) hard drives to any computer and
transferring, backing up stuff etc.

Quicker than Infrared (which I couldn't get working, what a waste of
time, and sloooww serial.