- Jan 27, 2021
- 27
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Hi all
This topic relates to an earlier thread which you guys have commented on and I have received some really helpful PM’s but I think I should be more specific.
So, at my work we have a CNC machine that cost over £30,000 more than 20 years ago. At the time the machine was the Dog’s Doodars. So, last year the CNC bit of the machine went faulty so we turned to the manufacturer (Murat Haffner) for service. Their starting point, which they wouldn’t deviate from, is that we should buy a brand new machine which is these days £45,000+. They literally wouldn’t even discuss repairing the existing machine which is a shame because it appeared that the whole thing would go to scrap. Lucky for us we found a small independent company who repaired this machine. Indeed they repaired it for a few hundred pounds but their agent told me that whilst they can repair the actual CNC machine they don’t do PC repairs etc. His words were “If the PC dies then you’re snookered”. So, I reluctantly decided to source the same PC hardware and build a back up machine.
ABOUT THE MACHINE: It is a huge CNC cutting machine that is controlled by a tower PC that is stood on the floor next to it.
ABOUT THE PC: It is over 20 years old. You can guess how old it is by the fact that the main board has an ISA Slot (which contains a controller card Ferrorcontrol FBI-PC). The HDD is an old 80MB PATA IDE HDD. (Yes MB). The only software on the HDD is a German version of DOS. It is this German DOS software that controls the CNC Machine.
So, I found an old PATA IDE HDD in the bottom drawer. This week I recently purchased an identical Motherboard/CPU/Memory bundle on eBay. My intentions are that I will this week take the HDD out of the PC and somehow copy it to the other old PATA IDE HDD that I found in the drawer. However, given what is at stake here there’s no way I can afford to make a mistake. So, I need some method of making a clone of the HDD. I know some might suggest using cloning software but there is no way I can gamble on installing anything else on the HDD because a) There’s not a lot of room left on the drive and b) I don’t want to risk corrupting the data on the drive by installing anything else on it. So, I bought a 2 drive docking station of Amazon but both connectors are SATA so I can’t use that. I then bought a Sabrent cable off eBay that works as follows:
Plug one end into USB on my WIN 10 PC. Plug the other end into the PATA IDE Connection on the cable.
So, what do you suggest guys? I must rule out installing anything onto the drive. It’s just too risky and even so... would new software even work on a HDD with no windows installation on it? I don’t mind installing software on my own Win10 PC.
What are you thinking peeps?
This topic relates to an earlier thread which you guys have commented on and I have received some really helpful PM’s but I think I should be more specific.
So, at my work we have a CNC machine that cost over £30,000 more than 20 years ago. At the time the machine was the Dog’s Doodars. So, last year the CNC bit of the machine went faulty so we turned to the manufacturer (Murat Haffner) for service. Their starting point, which they wouldn’t deviate from, is that we should buy a brand new machine which is these days £45,000+. They literally wouldn’t even discuss repairing the existing machine which is a shame because it appeared that the whole thing would go to scrap. Lucky for us we found a small independent company who repaired this machine. Indeed they repaired it for a few hundred pounds but their agent told me that whilst they can repair the actual CNC machine they don’t do PC repairs etc. His words were “If the PC dies then you’re snookered”. So, I reluctantly decided to source the same PC hardware and build a back up machine.
ABOUT THE MACHINE: It is a huge CNC cutting machine that is controlled by a tower PC that is stood on the floor next to it.
ABOUT THE PC: It is over 20 years old. You can guess how old it is by the fact that the main board has an ISA Slot (which contains a controller card Ferrorcontrol FBI-PC). The HDD is an old 80MB PATA IDE HDD. (Yes MB). The only software on the HDD is a German version of DOS. It is this German DOS software that controls the CNC Machine.
So, I found an old PATA IDE HDD in the bottom drawer. This week I recently purchased an identical Motherboard/CPU/Memory bundle on eBay. My intentions are that I will this week take the HDD out of the PC and somehow copy it to the other old PATA IDE HDD that I found in the drawer. However, given what is at stake here there’s no way I can afford to make a mistake. So, I need some method of making a clone of the HDD. I know some might suggest using cloning software but there is no way I can gamble on installing anything else on the HDD because a) There’s not a lot of room left on the drive and b) I don’t want to risk corrupting the data on the drive by installing anything else on it. So, I bought a 2 drive docking station of Amazon but both connectors are SATA so I can’t use that. I then bought a Sabrent cable off eBay that works as follows:
Plug one end into USB on my WIN 10 PC. Plug the other end into the PATA IDE Connection on the cable.
So, what do you suggest guys? I must rule out installing anything onto the drive. It’s just too risky and even so... would new software even work on a HDD with no windows installation on it? I don’t mind installing software on my own Win10 PC.
What are you thinking peeps?
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