Check out what I found hiding in my closet!

Posted by clonetrooper5385@reddit | vintagecomputing | View on Reddit | 27 comments

It was given to me nearly 10 years ago. I remember firing it up once, and it wouldn't detect its harddrive. I toyed around with it a little, and never touched it again because I couldn't get it to boot into an OS. Today I found it and gave it a 2nd go, like 8 years later. I can't believe that all I needed to do was enter CMOS setup and then the harddrive was detected.

Coincidently, I just ordered a new laptop for myself (I'm a college student) and should get it today. But I'm more excited to have this one! I've gotta take it to class at least once, I wanna see the reaction when I use it to take notes or enter lab data.

Side note, how do I go about cloning the hardrive? I want to preserve the OS, because I trust that old harddrive about as much as I trust my cat to not eat all the food when I leave the bag open.

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compu85@reddit

Myyyyy that looks similar to the Compudyne 486 laptop I have, which was actually made by TwinHead.

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lee4hmz@reddit

It also looks a lot like a 2004-vintage Sempron laptop I have, which was also made by Twinhead.

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Ambitious_Turnip_868@reddit

I would daily drive that if I could tbh

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

I want to find a way. Two useful things I know it can do. Spreadsheets and word docs. Just need a way to get them to my other devices.

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sputwiler@reddit

I used to have a beat-up old laptop in college (in addition to my Actual Computer) that I used exclusively as a distraction-free writing space (it couldn't connect to the internet). It was great.

For this, a USB floppy drive for your modern PC is probably the easiest. Otherwise I'd get a USB-serial adapter and a null-modem (crossover) serial cable, then transfer the files using an xmodem program. That's how I copied the data off of my dad's old Atari ST.

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earthforce_1@reddit

I lost many a lunch hour to minesweeper.

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ohmylordkevin@reddit

IDE to SATA or USB. Then use winimage to make a copy of it. I'm pretty sure it also lets you do that with hard drives not just floppies.

I think the best part is that it makes an iso out of it and you could burn it to a CD or of course write it to another drive easily.

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Arnold0@reddit

Considering how old that laptop looks, running Windows 3.1 and all there’s a good chance the hard drive inside of it is too old to work with USB to IDE adapters. USB to IDE adapter do not work at all if the drive doesn’t do LBA addressing and the one in that machine is likely too old to do that. With some exceptions most drives smaller than 500MB won’t do LBA.

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ohmylordkevin@reddit

Yeah that's why I said IDE to SATA OR IDE to USB...

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

So I don't have any blank floppy drives or a spare IDE drive I trust. I'm wondering if there's a way I can back up an image of the drive directly to my Windows 11 PC, and use it to make another compatible harddrive when I come across another suitable IDE harddrive. Right now I'm just concerned with preserving the irreplaceable drivers and software on it.

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ohmylordkevin@reddit

"IDE to SATA or USB. Then use winimage to make a copy of it. I'm pretty sure it also lets you do that with hard drives not just floppies.

I think the best part is that it makes an iso out of it and you could burn it to a CD or of course write it to another drive easily."

You don't need a spare ide drive, just use winimage to extract everything on the drive or make a disk image of the drive that you could use later on. you just need a usb to ide or sata to ide. And yes you can. Also, winworld, the internet archive, or files.mpfoli is gonna probably have your "irreplaceable" drivers.

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asterisk_14@reddit

Agreed. I have and like this adapter. IDE, 40-pin IDE, and SATA. Even has a power connector for 3.5" or 5.25" drives.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B077N2KK27

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JBYTuna@reddit

Cool! AST Research! They were a big company here in the early to late 1980’s.

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RetroBastardo@reddit

I have that exact model in my closet, it sounds so cool powering it on

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GamerTechXL@reddit

That’s awesome! I’m also a college student with vintage laptops lol, I took notes on my IBM ThinkPad 760el! Thankfully I have one good battery and I run my colleges Vintage Electronics and Computer Club!

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

Maybe that's something I need to get started at my university. I'm an engineering major so we have the nerds avaliable, but most are typically into the newer stuff.

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GamerTechXL@reddit

Right, I was an engineering major lmao I got plenty of nerds as friends

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sidusnare@reddit

This is it, the worst trackball placement ever

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

Well said. I'm hoping I can connect a mouse to it when I get some games for it.

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Chreed96@reddit

How's that keyboard sound? It looks really nice.

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

It sounds and feels amazing. Too bad I can't have this on a modern laptop

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Chreed96@reddit

Like a Model M?

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clonetrooper5385@reddit (OP)

I've never used a Model M, but I am a fan of other mechanical keyboards. This one is membrane, but the keys still have a nice sound and feel to them. It's not like other crappy membrane boards.

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Also that mouse, Jesus that's going to take it's toll on your wrist !

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BoltLayman@reddit

Wow. I am too young for knowing the name of that NextStep-ish dock at the right edge of the screen. LOL.