[NTLUG:Discuss] slightly OT - external USB hard drive

[Michael Barnes]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 6:53 PM, Fred James <fredjame at fredjame.cnc.net> wrote:
> All
> (pardon the slightly OT)
> The machine in question is currently running Windows 98 SE
> The problem is to save the user content and convert the machine to Linux
> (only)
>
> The OT part is ...
>    (a) best way to get the data from the W98SE box? - neither my
> external USB hard drive or my USB flash memory will work on that OS
>    (b) the box has been crashing/freezing a lot, in what appears to be
> your basic "memory leak" problem - no errors messages presented - is
> there a good/safe way to test/inspect the memory?
>    (b.1) I hate to do all the work to find the Linux suffered on the
> machine as well, just because the memory was flaky.
>
> Thank you in advance for any help you may be able to offer
> Regards
> Fred James
>


Reading between the lines, it sounds like this is a dual-boot machine.
 Since W98 used FAT(32) if you can boot into Linux, mount the W98
partition and move the data as needed.

If it will boot from CD, burn a Knoppix disk on another machine.
IIRC, a typical Knoppix iso also contains memtest86.  Run that first
to check your memory.  Then boot to Knoppix.  You should be able to
see your USB devices.  Then simply copy the desired data.

HTH,

Michael