# Restore 486 DOS BACK-UP TO WINDOWS 98



## sagamore (Jul 9, 2003)

I have 2 business DOS applications that I have backed up on 3.5 floppies from a 486 PC, which I want to restore on a Windows 98 system. 

I can't find the correct command on Win 98 to restore this program along with the data they contain.

I have copied the complete directory and files of each program.

How do I get this restoration to work?

Once I get it into the Windows 98 system, I want to be able to copy it to a CD for a secure back-up.

Looking forward to a response from anyone who knows how to do this.

Thanks.

Carl at Sagamore


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## Casey820 (May 3, 2002)

What kinds of files are on these disks? Did you use a backup program to create them? If so, you have to use that same program to restore them. If you just copied files from the hard drive to floppy disks, then just copy them back. If the disks contain an actual program, then put the disks in and install it.

You need to supply a lot more information.


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## sagamore (Jul 9, 2003)

These are files of an application program that enables me to gain access to my customer list and the detail involved covering their names, addresses, phones, order dates, items ordered, etc. etc. I bring them up on the screen using their zip code when they call in to place an order.

The program was originally installed around 1992 and we keep adding customers or updating old ones on a daily basis. It's installed on my C Drive in the DOS. I did not use the back up program that is part of the application program. I went right to my C Drive and backed up using the DOS B


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## sagamore (Jul 9, 2003)

I accidently knocked out that last message.

To repeat, I did not use the back up program that is part of the application software. I went right to the C prompt and typed in the DOS command at C:\> BACKUP C: \ARCLIST A: and started copying the files as prompted. I ended up with 20 3.5" Floppies.
"ARCLIST" is the name of the software application.


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## Casey820 (May 3, 2002)

I've never heard of using "backup" at the command line to back up data or programs. What do the files on these 20 disks look like? Are there files with a .EXE extention? Did you try copying all 20 disks back to the hard drive?


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## sagamore (Jul 9, 2003)

Casey:I'm at home now and can't remember the file extensions in the ARCLIST Directory. some are exe but most have other extensions. I'll look tomorrow and post a reply then.

Thanks again for taking the time to help me with my problem.

Sagamore


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## Perfesser (Jun 2, 2003)

This could be tricky. If you used DOS 'backup' on a DOS system you need the corresponding 'restore' from the same or a later version of DOS, but it isn't part of WIN98SE on my system. Since most WIN98 systems are FAT32 you couldn't boot from a DOS floppy with 'restore' on it to run restore...let me do some testing to see if WIN98 will accept an older version of restore. I'll be baaaack...
Your files on the floppies should be 'backup.001' and 'control.001' through .020 if they are from a DOS backup.
The good news is that, if we can find a way to do it, your app should run OK in a DOS window.


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## Perfesser (Jun 2, 2003)

Well...that won't work. I get 'incorrect DOS version'.
Is the DOS system still operating so you can make copies of the files? The best way would be to make a ZIP of the entire ARCLIST directory that you could then UNzip onto the Win98 system. Does the DOS machine have Windows 3.1 on it? If so get WinZip 6.3; it can 'span' a zip file across multiple floppies. then you can unzip it with WinZip on the 98 system.
The fact that it took 20 floppies says it's a BIG database and I can see why you don't want to manually move it.
Since you didn't mention ZIP drives I assume there aren't any on the systems; that would make it EASY.
If I had to do this I could have the whole thing on a CD in an hour...I have a DOS/WIN3.1 system running (for some old shootemup games and an astronomy program), and ZIP drives on both it and the WIN98 main system with the CD writer.
Restore the files from floppy to ZIP drive on the DOS machine, take the ZIP disk across the room to the WIN98, burn a CD from the ZIP disk, done.


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## Lurker1 (Jan 30, 2001)

Yes winzip is the way to go. If you just have DOS running on the old computer try and use PKzip. 

If your windows 98 computer's hard drive is formatted in fat 16 you can probably boot off a dos floppy with the restore program on it and restore the files that way.

And now for something completely different.
The hardware solution for this is to take the hard drive out of the old 486 computer, hook it up temporarly as a slave hard drive in the new computer and just copy the files between drives in windows.


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## sagamore (Jul 9, 2003)

Whew! You guys have my head spinning!
The program and data is contained in 197 files, 27,329,344 kb.
Sample files are: House2.dat, house2 NX4, Config.exe, Printers.arc, Rebuild.exe, Names.NX1, ZPC.arc to name a few.

Yes, I'm still using this program on the old 486 and it behaves beautifully as does my billing program. It is a DOS/WIN3.1 system but I have no use for the 3.1 anymore.

I have Zip drives on a couple of Mac's that I have but no Zip on the 486.

Perhaps I should take these files to some service bureau and let them put it on a CD for me. I'm afraid of screwing up the PC that has the WIN98 system on it.

I appreciate the time you all have taken to give my problem your attention. Thank you very, very much.

Sagamore


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Just copy the entire folder from the old PC to the C drive on the Win98 PC, do not use the backup program. Most older apps in the DOS world installed to a single folder. Copy that folder to the Win98 PC, create a shortcut to the executable and you should be back in business. If it's too large to fit on a disk try using an older version of Winzip and use the command line to zip them up to a disk.


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## Cosmic (May 5, 2003)

As pointed out the Old DOS has a number of ways to make Backups. If you did it with BACKUP in general it probably is not going to work across platforms because you have to use RESTORE.

As pointed out in other posts, you really want a method of bulk copying. That will allow you to do it on floppies if you want.

The best way to bulk copy from old machines as yours and move the files to a newer Windows machine is to use an old DOS shell program called TREEVIEW.

This will let you see the old machine directories as a pictoral tree and do bulk copies by directory / subdirectory to floppy. You just keep track of your starting points. 

TREEVIEW lets you get into a directory with a few keystrokes, no DOS Commands required, it will display the total number of files and the bytes they take up.

You can put the files in a format showing files and filesize. You then bulk tag the ones to move, by holding down the F2 key, TREEVIEW will automatically show you the tagged files and how many bytes you are moving. Once you have a floppy sized bunch tagged, move it too the floppy with a couple more keystrokes.

Come back untag, your cursor stays in the same spot, repeat, repeat until they have all of them moved. Move by directories / folders.

You can do it with one floppy or copy them all in one big stack and then go move them to the new machine. Probably works best to only use a few floppies. One working in the old machine, one you are transferring to the new machine. TREEVIEW can erase the files on the floppies so you only use two floppies total.

In general you do not want to mix operations with old DOS and Win98 flavor of DOS on the new machine. You can get conflicts and probably will. You can move files back the same way from the new machine to the old.

A CD on the new machine as a direct write would work. You want to use TREEVIEW to set up the directory / folder structure on the CD. Very easy to do. TREEVIEW can also run on the new machine to move the files from the floppy to the CD. You can have conflicts between how Win98 and old DOS works on bulk copies across drives. It will probably be cleaner to use TREEVIEW totally to do all the moves, on both machines.

Once done, shutdown immediately the Win98 machine and reboot. I get weird Icon changes if I do this with an operation as explained. No damage occurs, you reboot and the effects are cleared. Win98 and old DOS file handling is different. All file names will appear as caps on the new machine. The type files are not important, you don't have to ZIP anything. Goes pretty slick once you get the hang of it and understand the Do's and Don'ts.

Once moved Win98 will be able to access all the files as Windows files. There are some things to know about this method and you can get into trouble. You never want to move files to the new Drive C, in this manner.

As pointed out the ZIP drive method is the Cat's PJ's. It is the method I use to back up all my old machine data to CD's. Basically I use the method I described above but one disk normally is enough to back up one old machine. Plus I can take data back the other way to the old machine. Usually this is something I have grabbed off the Web and want to go hack up on the old machine. Like how to beat the lottery.


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