How do I access my external hard drive from windows 98?

Question

I have a fairly new usb external hard drive and I tried to hook it up to my windows 98 computer but it says it cant find the device driver software (have no access to internet either with this computer) and so I can't open my external hard drive to put stuff onto it. Can anyone talk me through how to open up the usb external hard drive to store files (pictures etc.) onto it?

Answer 1

right click my computer icon

select properties

then device manager then hardware

go to the bottom of list USB devices

use the + to open a longer list

plug your device in...it may appear in here /if not may show up as unknown

select it and right click

select properties

select update drivers

do manual search for mass storage device drives

they may be there .browse or choice select from a list

they are standard drivers for usb mass storage device

but i am not certain with windows 98 edition....



there are other ways but i need to know if you have another system ,and can network them

the new external drive contain sata drives and your 98 system will contain ide ,,,,,they are different

if you can get a ide caddie you could remove hard drive and connect to another system

some externals come with a driver disc with drivers for win 98 ,,,,i take it yours didn't.

Answer 2

Maybe an 8 gig memory stick would work but it might also need a driver to read it.

Can you open up the computer and remove the hard drive and keep it?

Can you email some of those files to yourself? Installed programs can not get transferred off anyways. So just Word, Excel documents. pictures, and email the more important ones to yourself. Each email will take time to send out so you might need to get like a gmail email account and stay up all night emailing them out.

USB technology came out the same time as Windows 98. Even a USB memory stick will have trouble. And it sounds like you have no time to buy a memory stick from a 24 hour store. Even then you have to look for a Win98 driver if it does not recognize it. The external hard drive might not be working because it can not draw enough power so maybe a small memory stick would work.



Update: I read your other question on this. So the old Win98 machine has no internet so you can't even email off of it.

And if you have no friend to help you remove the harddrive then look at some youtube videos on it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=youtube+removing+harddrive

Then your best bet is to see if a memory stick would work on it. It does not need much power as a external harddrive.

A old Win98 machine might have a cd drive that can burn CDs. I doubt if it can do DVDs. That technology is newer. Maybe buying an external cd writer would work but not if it goes through a USB on your machine.

Do you have a 24 hour store that might sell memory sticks?

Again, you might have to surf for a driver for it.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=win98+memory+stick+driver



And the manufacturers website for the memory stick is the best bet for a win98 driver. You never said the brand of the external drive so I can not even look for a win98 driver for you.

And for USBs, Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) reads USB devices a lot easier than plain Windows 98. Do a Start - Run - explorer.exe and then do a Help About Windows to see which Windows 98 you have.

Answer 3

download a universal usb drive driver on another computer and transfer it to a usb flash drive and install it from there on the W98 one, if it is a sata drive in an enclosure you may need a USB cable with TWO connectors at the computer end to provide enough power

Answer 4

have you tried compressing the files into zips and sending them to yourself through email and then on a different computer open them and unzip? not sure if 98 can run usb drives from what i know........ooops didnt read carefully at your statement, i digress, im wrong you cant then unfortunatly :(

Answer 5

Windows 98? If there's no drivers and you can't connect to the internet...You can't