how to get files off a windows 95 computer
 

my parents have an old windows 95 computer that they sometimes still use but its fairly useless and they want to get rid of it but there are pictures on there that they want to keep.

usb drives don't work. i've tried old ones and nothing.

i thought maybe upload to dropbox or similar but of the browsers i could get to work, none would let me upload to any of the popular services, dropbox, onedrive, google.

would taking the drive out of the machine and getting and IDE to USB cable and plugging into into a new computer to get the files off work? this is the only idea i could come up

also possibly connecting to ftp but i am not sure if i can find a program that will let me connect to a secure ftp with windows 95.

Does it have a CD burner? Burn the files to a CD. You could also slave the drive to another computer and access the file system. As long as it's not a boot drive, it won't load Win95, but you should still have access to the files.

If all else fails, take it to Best Buy, or something similar. They can pull data from old drives and it's not too expensive.

EDIT: Just saw this, "would taking the drive out of the machine and getting and IDE to USB cable and plugging into into a new computer to get the files off work? this is the only idea i could come up " -- it would just show up the same way an external drive would like I explained above. You wouldn't really even need to slave it, just attach as a secondary storage device.

pull the drive and hook the drive to a newer machine and pull the data

life savers.

I have a drive cloner too

1. remove the hard drive
2. set it as a slave with the jumper an old ATA100 ?
3. all the new boards I have built with have an old ATA 100/133 socket.
4. connect the old drive to the new comp they get if it is FAT32 or FAT16? the newer Winblows should be able to read it.

The back up on the floppy disk went bad :upsidedow W95

Try to find a proper app here: Old and New Software Version Downloads - OldApps.com to make SFTP working.

Share to map (SMB) and connect with another win pc to that map.
Maybe you can also connect through the parallelport or serialport with an old dos programm.

Got one like this also ;)

Most motherboards dont have IDE connectors nowadays, so he will need to find an older PC to do the job..

this is an OK idea but won't work as pictured cause no ATA on any win95 machine I've ever seen. (edit: sorry now I see the IDE connector on the cable)

I have one of these it covers most of the bases for getting data off of old drives and other miscellaneous stuff:

Amazon.com: 2.5"/3.5" IDE SATA HDD Docking Station +Card Reader Hub (Black): Computers & Accessories

Build quality is not fantastic but mine definitely works, not sure about longevity if used as a permanently connected drive, but for lifeboat type one-time data retrieval it definitely gets the job done.

where'd all the files go?

thanks guys. found a good solution that will for under 30 bucks. my parents will be happy.

I build my own with ASUS motherboards usually
But you are right, that was a floppy connector I saw when I put a new ssd last week in a box that had a 5 year old ASUS mobo. Good box still with a 4 core AMD and 3xSATA 3.0 -- little slow but on LINUX ... no winblows bloat ... reasonably fast now.

Well, if you can connect to the internet email your pictures or upload them ...

I haven't seen a working W95 box in over 10 years ... maybe you can find an old USB PCI card that will work. A trip to the computer bone yard or ebay maybe ?

Facebook is your friend (for not-naughty pictures) LOL.

how about FTP ?:1orglaugh

With a baseball bat??

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

Put them on a floppy disc.

email them to yourself and save the $30

can't even do that as the only browsers that will run on it are severaly outdated, so much so that you can't even log into email like gmail, hotmail, facebook, etc. i suppose i could set up pop email or something but it seems easier to just spend the money and get them off there that way. the thing sounds like its going blow when its on.

What about using an old ftp client (ws-ftp) and u/ling the files to an ftp site?

I have a hardrive box that is external.

But this should work.

One other option is to buy an internal card reader and copy files to that.

Third option is to see if the win 95 pc has a working floppy drive. You could copy files to that then buy a usb floppy drive for your pc, though this option will be slow if you have lots of pics.

Win95 was good for playing DOS games.

Connect the win 95 PC on the same nextwork as any other PC.
Share the folder(s) .., or just share the C drive if you are just going to trash it later.
On the newer PC access the shared drive and move the files you want off of it.

There are enough posts, and youtube videos that you should be able to setup the network shared drive in a few minutes.

But you did not use win95 for games, only dos.

In other words if you had only dos you could play games.

does wetransfer.com work on the old browsers, in that case it might be a good option.

Amazon.com: Generic IDE to SATA or SATA to IDE Adapter: Computers & Accessories

this is <$5 USD maybe this will work?

:2 cents::2 cents::2 cents:

here is another one
Amazon.com: Serial ATA SATA to Parallel ATA PATA/IDE Hard Drive HDD CD DVD-ROM Interface Convert Adapter: Computers & Accessories

FTP is a good idea too, that or just pull the drive and set it up as slave on a different machine. CD burner would be the next suggestion.

Wow time flies a win 95 pc with no support for modern usb sticks.:1orglaugh