All the help I can offer for now.
Posted on 10/12/2013 8:25:24 AM PDT by ottbmare
Back in the early 1980s I was a first-adopter and bought an AT&T 6300 PC. Believe it or not, it still fires up and runs (though the monitor fizzes now and won't display anything). It runs MS-DOS and had Wordstar on it.
I backed up the work I had on that machine with both hard copies and floppy disks, (you young whipper-snappers might have heard of those), but they were all destroyed in a fire. Always intended to ask someone if there was a way to get the information off the old hard drive, but I kept thinking, "mañana," and the years went by.
Now I am getting ready to leave my home of 22 years and am looking to throw things out. Before I take this faithful classic machine to the dump, does anyone know of a way, thirty + years later, to get data off this machine? Stories of daughter's childhood, a lot of correspondence, work writing, book proposals, and other stuff are there. It would be nice to have it back. But I'm poor (if I weren't broke I wouldn't be leaving this house) so I can't spend thousands.
Ideas, suggestions, contacts, or links would be most gratefully received.
Take hard drive out and put in an enclosure. Convert the file system to NTFS (instruction below). Slime chance you will lose the files, but better than no chance.
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?MfrId=0&CatId=27
No one bothered to mention that you are most likely using FAT16 file system that Windows 7 will not read. Once you plug the external drive in you will need to convert to NTFS using the Convert command to read the files off the disk.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/convert-a-hard-disk-or-partition-to-ntfs-format
Wordstar Converters.
http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/downloads/downloads-fileconverters#
First of all,I am an oldschooler so sort of recognize that machine,having started in hobby computing before the IBM PC.If I understand you,the computer itself works but the monitor doesn’t.Not sure how you can tell the computer is still ok.
Not certain which monitor you have -could be mono,or CGA, or special to AT&T.Looks like the monitor is unique.
Most likely the hard drive is MFM interface ,not IDE.IDE came along a few years later I think.Those external hard drive case will be of no use with an MFM drive.
Do an internet search,there are several sites about the AT&T 6300 .
AS for recovering your data,professional services are likely to be costly.
If the computer still works ,emailing the files to yourself might be an option.There are still floppy disk available,probably on ebay.
A null modem cable to a computer having a serial port might be another option.
IF nothing else, at least remove the hard drive before tossing the computer;you may find someone willing to recover your info later.
Parallel or Serial cable. Laplink, FastLynx, and even DOS 6.x’s built-in INTERLNK can all transfer files over cable. It’s inconvenient and not too swift, but it works.
FastLynx has the same code as INTERLNK but has a nifty interface and can use realtime compression.
An Iomega zip drive might work, since it will run off the parallel port. I think I still have one in my garage somewhere, but I might have thrown it out.
If you could find someone with a monitor and some floppies...
This needs to sent to ottbmare. Many new laptops don’t have an serial port but most desktops still do. I had to get a usb - serial adapter.
Since the computer is in working condition I would look in vintage computer forms for help. I think you could find some one to trade you the data on a cd for the box.
All the help I can offer for now.
Printers with “printer ports” are still around... Borrow a printer and a working CGA monitor, and print everything out.
That service manual PDF is 25 MB
larger than the HDD in question
lolz
There are many hard drive enclosures out there ... but determine what cable you need for your hard drive mechanism - to - hard drive enclosure ... connection ... and then get such an enclosure.
Remove your computer’s hard drive from the computer, and install the hard drive into the enclosure that you bought.
The hard drive enclosure will most likely have a USB or Firewire connection for connecting to some computer.
Find somebody whom you trust, and they use the Mac -— any Mac OS from 10.4 “Tiger” thru 10.8 “Mountain Lion” will do.
Connect your hard drive enclosure to that Mac.
Your hard drive will mount and a generic icon (most likely) will display in the Finder window for the Mac’s Desktop.
Ask your friend to create a new folder on the Mac’s Desktop.
Copy the contents of your hard drive to that folder.
Make a DVD of the contents of that folder.
Repeat for addition old hard drives that you might have around.
VERY easy to get the data off of a Windows OS based machine hard drive, when using the Mac.
Hook up the computer`s telephone jack to your fax machine and turn on the hard drive?
It works from the telephone line to the fax to the pc. It prints out hacking inquires.
never tried the reverse.
You need to find a working, compatible monitor. Then, if you’re lucky, really lucky, the system might actually start up and you might be able to access the hard drive. I’m sorry to say that I would be very surprised if you get this far.
At this point you could transfer the data onto floppies, and then find a PC with a floppy drive that can read them.
You can ignore the comments about taking out the hard drive and putting it in a modern machine. The oldest thing they will support is IDE which didn’t come out until 1986.
You can ignore the comments about using a program to transfer the data over serial/parallel, unless you happen to have that installed already, or can find it on a floppy to install. Otherwise, you still need another machine with another floppy drive to get the software to your 6300, which means you can just use the floppy to transfer the data.
Good grief.Please don’t take this too personal.
Please pay attention to what the original poster wrote.
He has personal data on an old computer running DOS,not any version of Windows.Worse,his old monitor (display screen) is bad and it is also a really non-standard one.
He is using a different and much newer computer to post here.
The apparent goal is recovery of data of personal value,not re-use of a tiny old hard drive.
Telling him to run a hard drive erasing program that won’t even begin to load on an old DOS computer is a sign somebody didn’t read the original question.
The old computer’s hard drive is not compatible with any of the external hard drive enclosures sold now. Not IDE,.not PATA or SATA or USB.
All these Windows tips are not relevant until he gets the data off the old drive and onto a newer one.
This thread is not unique;in every computer forum I see lots of people posting answers who ASSUME the person asking for help must be using the latest version of Windows ,regardless of all the contrary info posted in the question.
Don’t take it to the dump, sell it on Ebay. Believe it or not people pay good money for old computers like that.
Your reply does not apply to my post.
Undoubtedly, that is an MFM hard drive. You might see if you can find an old PC with an MFM controller. It might read the drive.
Personally, I’d consider contacting some data recovery firms to see if any of them have an old PC/AT ISA interface setup for doing that.
You could likely find someone to fix the monitor for little money.
I assume you have inspected the connection?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.