Copy data from DOS HD to XP?

[tmathews]

I would like to burn the contents of the HD from my 486
doorstop to CD before retiring it. I got a USB->IDE cable,
plugged in the drive and plugged it in to my XP laptop,
and got a message "Drive not formatted -- would you like
to format it now?". I put it back in the 486 box and it
worked fine. Then I tried installing it as a second drive
in my XP desktop and was again told it was not formatted.
Is there something fundamental I'm missing?

Some details of the 486 box:
-- DOS 6.22 / Windows 3.1
-- 486 DX2/66
-- HDD Maxtor 7420 AV as master (IDE == ATA1)
XP laptop:
-- XP Pro SP2
-- Pentium M / 1.5 GHz
-- USB 2.0 (HD power from external supply); drive
jumpered as master
XP desktop:
-- XP Pro SP2
-- Celeron 466
-- eMachines eTower466id
-- Seagate 8.4 GB master on primary IDE
-- Samsung CD-RW master on secondary IDE
-- 486's Maxtor jumpered as slave on secondary IDE

The only common medium between the 486 and my other
machines is 1.44MB floppy and I would rather not spend
hours swapping disks. If there's some inherent
incompatibility preventing the old HD from being
recognized, is there some primitive form of networking
(e.g. direct serial connection) I can use to transfer the
data?

[glc]

Was the drive installed with an overlay (Ontrack Disk Manager or EZ-Drive) in the 486 originally? If so, this could be the cause. The drive is not doublespaced or drivespaced, is it?

Yes, you can use a direct serial or direct parallel connection with the right cable, but DOS 6.x's Interlink is not compatible with XP's direct cable connection. You would have to use a 3rd party solution such as Laplink or an old DOS Norton Commander.

[tmathews]

Yep, it's drivespaced. I'll look for the serial transfer
programs you suggested. Thanks for the prompt and
accurate reply!

[glc]

Too bad you don't have a Win95 or Win98 machine - you can mount a Drivespace volume with those versions. If you have enough room on the old drive, you could uncompress it in place.