Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

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Calavera
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Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Calavera »

What would be the best way to back up the entire HD of an older computer onto a USB drive. The total size of the backup is probably only around 10gb maybe less. I want to back it up in a way so if I wanted to I could copy the contents from the USB drive back onto a hard drive and have everything load up just as it was before.

I have an old Celeron 500mhz I've been messing with and it is one of the few machines I have with a working IDE drive. I may want to use that drive in another machine or install Windows 98SE on the Celeron. The reason I want to back it up is because the computer is from 1999 and still has the original install of Windows ME on it. I know it isn't some big historic thing worth saving but I'd just like to save it if possible.

I haven't used it a ton, Windows ME seems ok. This PC is the only time in my life I've actually used Windows ME. I had no interest in it back in the day. The machine would probably be better off with Windows 98SE with the homemade service pack that includes all the updates and fixes and then run kernalex so I'm able to browse the web somewhat.
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Big Boss Man
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by Big Boss Man »

There's this program here but I'm assuming it works on newer OS's

https://www.backup-utility.com/free-bac ... tware.html

There's patches/updates for ME too

https://msfn.org/board/topic/176898-win ... ve-update/

There are old browsers which run fairly well on it too like Opera. Or maybe create a partition and dual boot with 98?

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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

I used EaseUS to clone a laptop HDD to SSD a few months ago. I don't know if it works with an older OS though.

https://www.easeus.com/backup-recovery/ ... drive.html

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pixel
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by pixel »

I'd find an old copy of Ghost. Some sites are claiming that older versions are abandonware.

Or there's Clonezilla, an open source application similar to Ghost.

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Calavera
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by Calavera »

Thanks for the information everyone. I assumed the ME was the original install because it had a bunch of Compaq crap installed. Then I noticed the sticker on the front of the case said Windows 98! Not only that but the inside of the case has a date stamp of September 1999 and ME didn't come out until a year later in September 2000. So obviously it wasn't original install, and I was also getting some errors here and there about missing system files. So I decided to just do a clean install. I chose ME again for no particular reason. It didn't seem that bad to me, seemed like Windows 98 Third Edition basically. I downloaded the update pack that Big Boss Man recommended. I haven't installed everything yet but will soon.

I had my wireless usb working fine and was able to get on the internet and use decent browsers. The problem I was having was any site that used ssl (which apparently is almost all of them) wouldn't load. I didn't have this problem on 98SE when I was using a Pentium 2. So I'm going to install everything and see if a clean install somehow fixed that problem. If not I'll be putting 98 SE with the latest update pack on it.
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Calavera
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by Calavera »

I'm posting from the Celeron 500mhz in Windows Millennium right now. I'm surprised I was able to log in. Right now I'm using a web browser called Sea Monkey. When I has Windows 98 set up to get online my preferred browser was K-Meleon. For some reason it won't load in ME. When trying to load the latest version for Windows 9x it says "MSVCR71.DLL was not found" With KernalEX installed it also won't load the latest version KernalEX supports. Right now I'm on a fresh install of Windows ME, the only thing I have installed is the drivers for my wireless USB and the Linksys network monitor which allows you to connect.

I am still having problems connecting to most websites. For example I can go to the K-Meleon main page but when I try to download anything I get the message "Seamonkey can't connect securely to sourceforge.net because the site uses a security protocol that isn't enabled." It isn't just the Seamonkey browser, I've tried several different browsers including Firefox and Opera and get a similar error. I don't understand what the problem can be as when I did the same thing with Windows 98SE on a Pentium 2 I had no problem connecting to any site. I'm going to keep trying to figure this out, but I'm about out of ideas.
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Calavera
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Re: Backup entire HD to a USB stick on old computer

Post by Calavera »

I have no idea how to fix this! I get this error on most sites

Cannot communicate securely with peer: no common encryption algorithm(s).

(Error code: ssl_error_no_cypher_overlap)

What is most annoying is I can't find anybody else talking about this problem. On the KernalEx wiki it acts like the browsers should work fine.
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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

You need to enable TLS or SSL3 in the browser.

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Calavera
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Calavera »

Dr. Zoidberg wrote: Sun May 19, 2019 10:46 pm You need to enable TLS or SSL3 in the browser.

I tried that earlier with no luck :(
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Calavera
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Calavera »

I never did get it to work. I've pretty much given up on it. I would like to tell you about a device I had been using with it recently. I wanted to use it for awhile before I gave my opinion on it. A device that allows you to use an SD card as an IDE hard drive. This one https://www.ebay.com/itm/SD-SDHC-SDXC-M ... 2749.l2649

I didn't even know a device like this existed. I knew there was compact flash to IDE converters and I was actually looking into getting one of those until I found out about this. It was only about $12. All you do is plug the IDE cable from the motherboard into the IDE connector, plug in a molex power connector (it also has a floppy drive style power connector) pop in an SD card and you are good to go. The first card I tried was a 32GB micro sd card in a SD card adapter. Upon booting it for the first time it immediately saw it as a 32gb drive. From there all that was needed was to run FDISK and set a primary DOS partition. After that I formatted it and installed Windows on it with no problem. The speed seems fine to me, but I haven't run any comparison benchmarks. It is now MUCH quieter then it was with that late 90s ide drive crunching away all the time. Overall I would highly recommend it for any old IDE computer you may be using.

My old computer which has an AMD X2 5400+ and is running Windows 7 has an IDE connector. I wonder how it would perform installing Windows 7 to the SD card and using it daily? I wonder how long the SD card would last? I've heard people say that using them in a device like this will wear them out quicker but it is just an old computer I'm messing around with now, not something I'll be using everyday. Putting it in my old PC and installing Windows 7 on it and using it daily would be an interesting test. It would probably be best to use a brand new SD card though. Might make for a good youtube video as well!
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Dr. Zoidberg
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

A regular SD card should last for a few years, probably longer if you're not using it much.

MicroSD are less durable, they are affected more by the heat generated during read/writes due to their smaller size.

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Calavera
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Calavera »

Dr. Zoidberg wrote: Sun May 26, 2019 3:58 pm A regular SD card should last for a few years, probably longer if you're not using it much.

MicroSD are less durable, they are affected more by the heat generated during read/writes due to their smaller size.
Have you personally ever had an SD card "go bad"? The only flash memory I've had die on me was a 16gb flash drive and that is only because I stupidly pulled it from the port during a transfer. You say it should last a few years or longer if you're not using it much. But I'm talking about using it as your main hard drive. The computer I would be putting it in if I do decide to test it out is mainly used for web browsing and streaming video. Mostly streaming video nowadays (youtube,Netflix etc...) So I'd imagine it would be read/writing quite a bit. Would a card used in that environment last only a month or so, or it would it work for several years despite the heavy use? I'm really curious as to what the results would be.
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Dr. Zoidberg »

I've had some microSD cards crap out. One of them was a cheap one from DX so that wasn't a surprise. The other was a 32GB card that was only used to play shows and movies in a TV box, but it did get fairly warm.

SD cards can last for a while with heavy usage, especially ones that are made more for cameras. Browsing and streaming shouldn't be that hard on it.

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Calavera
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Calavera »

This is unrelated to the Windows ME computer but I didn't feel it was worth starting a new thread just to mention this. A family member of mine recently upgraded to a new PC and gave me the old one. I really didn't think it was that old, it originally came with Windows up pre-installed so I'm guessing it is from around 2012 or so. It has an AMD E1-1500 APU and 6GB of ram. I haven't really done much with the PC yet but from just looking up the APU I am amazed at how underpowered it is!

I looked on the cpu section of userbenchmark.com to compare to the old AMD 5400+ system I mentioned in an earlier post and according to it the 5400+ is roughly 119% more powerful! A CPU from 2008! So just for fun I compared it to that old Pentium 4 computer I bought that was in the crazy red case with all the gauges. I can't remember if it is a 2.8ghz or 3.4ghz. Compared to the 2.8ghz it is basically equal, the site rates the E1-1500 just 1 percent better but the P4 still beats the APU in some categories. Compared to the 3.4ghz P4 though it says the P4 is 19 percent better. A computer that came with Windows 8 is less powerful than a Pentium 4 from around 2004.

Userbenchmark.com didn't have the E1-1500 listed so I used the E1-2500 APU as it is the most powerful one listed. So the 1500 might score even lower! The userbenchmark site has a total of 1159 processors. The E1-2500 is rated as 1106/1159 so there are only 53 CPUs less powerful than it listed! So it seems it is a horrible processor.

No real point to this post just wanted to mention this PC I was given and how surprisingly under powered it is. Even when it was brand new it would have been very under powered. It is of course fine for web browsing and emulators but I'm not sure what else. I wonder if it can even play 1080p video?

Maybe I could set it up as an emulation machine that immediately boots to a front end with all systems selectable with covers and or video previews.
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Big Boss Man
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Re: Help with getting an old computer online in Windows ME

Post by Big Boss Man »

Yea there's Emulation Station

https://emulationstation.org/

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