DOS based computer problems

I have an old computer at work (early 90s) that the motherboard died. Its operating system is DOS something, no windows. It has an old CADD system with a mountain of info that I don't want to lose. Of course it is too old to transfer to anything newer. Can the hard drive and video card be moved to a newer machine? Can a newer machine even run on an old DOS operating system? Help me Hive.

As another alternative, you may be able to create a disk image (as an early 90s HDD probably isn't too long for this world either) and run it on a modern computer in a virtual machine like Virtualbox.

Also FreeDOS might be able to run a little better on more modern hardware.

All that said, given that we're talking DOS and CAD in the same sentence, I'm assuming that the program has a GUI? If it does, it's probably tied to 1990s era graphics cards so you may end up having to find a replacement motherboard.

I may still have an old and working 486 in the basement. It will run DOS. 

Its yours for free, pick up in Rochester or Stratham NH. I am never going to get around to using it to un my old games. The HDD controller is IDE, so if you have an old Winchester???? drive it wont work, unless I have a Winchester card around, doubt full, I think it went with all my 286 stuff years ago.

Steve

If this is at all possible my plan would be to move the graphics card to a newer motherboard, transfer the contents of the old hard drive to a new hard drive. What I don't know is will a new (newer) motherboard work with the DOS operating system and video card. 

I have a new system that I work on, I just want to be able to access the old stuff for information. 

Irrs, thanks for the offer. I'm hoping this is possible with a newer motherboard, but we will wait to see.

I was thinking along the same lines as BoxheadTim, and would also do some poking around for whether you can find/configure a VM setup to provide emulation of a suitable graphics card. I did the quickest of Googles, and found that there's certainly (perhaps predictably) traffic on the topic of VMifying old systems, and the fact that some of the talk centers on old games gives me hope for your potential graphical quandary.

DOS probably will run fine, but the actual software you run probably won't have drivers for the hardware on a newer motherboard. Back in the DOS days even getting two network cards to talk to each other was difficult enough that everyone in my dorm in college chipped in for a group buy of NICs so they would be from the same lot number for playing Command and Conquer.

You might be best served with a freeware CAD program that can import your files and let you save them in a new enough format to let you replace your software as well.

If you can find a motherboard with the appropriate video card interface slot and hard drive controller then, yes it'll run DOS.  Before I did that I'd see if the software you're using will run in a DOSBox window on a modern machine. Link to DOSBox

If you just need the files, that should not be an issue, you will just need a computer that you can plug an IDE drive into.  I am pretty sure they make converters for IDE to SATA if you need to plug it into a newer computer.

You might want to look for programs that can read or convert old CAD formats.  It might be easier then trying to get an old program to work, especially if it requires some sort of hardware key, which some do,

+1 for virtualizing. Running this software "on bare metal" is just kicking the can down the road - eventually that hardware will fail too, and before you know it you're scrounging around for ancient computer relics on eBay like many US government agencies. Try VirtualBox first, if that fails, try Dosbox.

Edit: You might find that the hardest part of virtualizing this PC is getting the data off the hard drive. A few months ago I tried to virtualize an ancient DOS PC complete with Turbo button, and a good high-end USB hard drive multi-reader wouldn't let me access the drive. I'm guessing the IDE standard of the ancient PC was just too old for modern readers. It was just an unimportant hobby project that I dropped, but if I had to get it done I might've had to do something exotic and/or slow like transferring data over floppies or a serial link.

The linux command dd can do the job of moving the data from the old drive to the new, virtual or otherwise, regardless of the underlying OS. It's a little involved for the time I have at the keyboard right now, but it's not hard. You can boot off of live media (like the gparted live CD) move the data from the old drive to the new drive image, then have gparted resize the old partitions to fill the drive. Boot the machine up and run scandisk (or whatever) and you're done.

If you're interested in that, I can talk through specifics or try to find a guide.

Keep in mind the problem I mentioned was a hardware/firmware problem, not a software problem. I couldn't see the drive with fdisk -l. If you want to plug a modern hard drive into an ancient computer and transfer from there using a boot disk, you could run into the same problem.

You didn't specify how old, or what connection to the harddrive, but if it's IDE, I'd snag something like this.  Then I'd just plug it into your desktop computer.  Most likely, it's running FAT16 which any modern windows machine will be able to read like a USB drive.

Then, run the program inside of a virtual machine.  I like DOSBox, but as other have mentioned, it's not really a new problem.

The biggest thing I can see is if you have some sort of hardware dongle/key for your CAD program.  If that's the case, you're probably boned getting that to run unless your command-line hackery is stellar.

What format are the CAD files in? 

WonkoTheSane said:

You didn't specify how old, or what connection to the harddrive, but if it's IDE, I'd snag something like this.  Then I'd just plug it into your desktop computer.  Most likely, it's running FAT16 which any modern windows machine will be able to read like a USB drive.

That's very similar to the adapter I was using (specifically, it was this one) and the drive was not detectable by the computer with such a low-level tool as fdisk.

Thanks for all the ideas. I may have found a new cadd program that can open and use the old files. If it can I will just buy that and put the contents of my old hard drive on a new external HD and run from my new computer. 

GameboyRMH said:

WonkoTheSane said:

You didn't specify how old, or what connection to the harddrive, but if it's IDE, I'd snag something like this.  Then I'd just plug it into your desktop computer.  Most likely, it's running FAT16 which any modern windows machine will be able to read like a USB drive.

That's very similar to the adapter I was using (specifically, it was this one) and the drive was not detectable by the computer with such a low-level tool as fdisk.

Ah yeah, I guess that makes sense.. when you have a USB device, the controller itself has to recognize the partition table in order to pass-through to the computer..

I had the same problem trying to clone a floppy disk for my alignment  machine that uses some homemade file system.. I haven't been able to put a computer together yet with a "real"floppy drive.

Based on further reading, it looks like windows 8 is the last version to natively (and correctly) handle FAT16 without doing all sorts of command line shenanigans.   When in doubt, try using a Linux LiveCD/LiveUSB to boot off.  That should still handle it fine.

It's a 50/50 shot whether the PATA/IDE to USB adapter will work with it.