Back up

[shaunywhite]

Hello. I have an old comptuer. (not the one I'm on now) Its a Packard-Bell
386x, with windows 3.1 installed. I bought it for $90.00 from my son's friend
5 years ago. It's slow, but it works just fine: I mainly use it to write
letters, etc.. Anyway, the other day, it almost didn't boot, and I got a
hard-drive failure warning. I turned it off, and started it again about 5
minutes later, and it booted normally. I believe my hard-drive is getting
ready to go. Could you please tell me how to make back up disks for
everything in there, so I don't lose it? I have the book, "windows 3.1 for
dummies", but it really doesn't go into it much. Unfortunately, I believe
time is important, here.

[mjc]

Bsically anything that you would want to keep taht you don't have original disks for. That would include all your documents and programs that you want. I would also check the CMOS battery on a machine that old if the battery is going then it may need the extra "juice" from trying to boot that first time to remember the settings, especially if it is aet to autodetect the drive (is the clock keeping proper time?)

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mjc
To ME or NOT to ME....

[shaunywhite]

I am really just looking for information on how to use the back up facility in Windows 3.1.

thanks

[spaceAlien]

Greets--

> I am really just looking for information on how to use the back up
> facility in Windows 3.1.

Not sure about 3.1, but if it's like Win95, you need a tape drive attached to the computer -- it doesn't work with floppies.

> I believe my hard-drive is getting ready to go.

I agree -- when a HDD starts to go, it's usually only gets worse.

What are you going to do when the hard drive fails?

* Do you want to rebuild the machine with a new HDD? I would say that it would not be worth the time or effort. But if you do, then you will need Operating System software -- what do you know about installing an OS?

* Do you want to retain your old application programs? I would argue that old programs are for old computers, and that if you're going to migrate to a newer machine, then you should use newer application programs. However, you may need your old applications for format conversion. What do you know about installing application programs?

* What you really want is your documents and personal files. Can you identify all of these (do you know where they are on the HDD?) Do you have software on your other machine that can open/translate all of them? If so, then I would say just copy all your personal files to floppy...

Grins --



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.sig file goes here

[Paleo Pete]

Check into replacing the CMOS battery, sounds like it may be getting weak. The 386 board probably has a barrel shaped one soldered onto the motherboard, you'll have to find out if it has an external battery connector on the board, most did. It may also have a jumper to tell it the external battery ir there. Once you get that to work it's a good idea to cut the bad bettery off the board with a pair of small wire snippers, so it doesn't leak and corrode the board, if that's not already done.

Win3.x backup was not that great, but it does work. Many things can simply be copied onto floppies in File Manager, such as documents, pictures, small programs, but with some programs you'll need the original or backup disks to reinstall from. Backup disks can be made in DOS or windows, the diskcopy command in DOS is my preferred method, it makes an exact duplicate of the disk. I think the backup program only works with floppies, but tape is a possibility. I'm not sure about tape, I don't have one hooked up to my win3.11 machine so I can't try it.

To use backup you start it, browse to the files you want to back up, and tell it where to back them up to, and that's about it. If you need more detailed info I can dig out some of my win3.11 books and get a bit deeper into it.

If the hard drive is going bad, you can check CSO (http://www.computersurplusoutlet.com) and Pricewatch (http://www.pricewatch.com) both often have small hard drives listed. You can't use anything larger than 2GB with DOS/win3.x and with the 386 probably not larger than 540MB. The drives are often available for $30 or less, and if that's all it needs, it might be worth it to find one if you want to continue using the machine. Soon as I can I plan to grab a few for my older machines, I could handle 5 or 6 drives under 540MB. They make great game machines for the older DOS based stuff, and I have bunches here gathering dust...

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[shaunywhite]

How do i activate the back up command in Windows 3.
Is there a program in Windows or is it best to use DOS?, is so how?

Thanks

[Paleo Pete]

Check in the Applications group from Program Manager. It's named MWBACKUP with an icon that looks like a monitor with a safe beside it. If it's not there, run Windows Setup, from the Main program group, click Options and click Set Up Applications. You might have to have the Windows install disks.

You can run the DOS version of backup, but it would only restore from DOS. I would go for the Windows version. In DOS it's msbackup.exe. Type msbackup.

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Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)