Is this possible?

[havn't a clue]

I have an old PCwith a lot of dos based programs running on a single 386 machine, w/NT 3.1 operating system, and no backups. Prsently, there are a lot of programs and files on this system that can only be used on that system.

This may be dumb but here goes:

Is there any way I can install 3.1 on a seperate partition of an XP PC or an external hard drive?

Can I ghost the 386 machine to an external hardrive or do a PC to PC tranfer of data and program files to the external drive?

All of that may not be necessary but basically I am trying to take all of the programs from this 3.1 system and be able to use them on systems with WinXp. Any and all help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Is this possible?

I do not know if you could dual boot with XP and 3.1, but I do know you could install all of those apps into a virtual machine like Vmware or Virtual PC and use them inside there.

You could make them into the same workgroup/network and transfer the files, or get a USB Male to Male and transfer them as well

And yes, you could ghost the system into a Virtual machine as well. Just create the partition/system drive and then run ghost as your normally would on any system to ghost the drive back into the virtual machine

Very unlikely that you could actually RUN these programs in xp though, with a virtual machine yeah. Or a dual boot if possible, but not directly in XP

[BongWizard]

Re: Is this possible?

ypu can easily dual boot with XP and NT 3.1, but you wont be able to use most of the DOS based apps under XP. You can either create a separate partition on your HDD and transfer the entire contents of the 386 to this new partition and boot from there. or you could just install the old drive in your XP system and dual boot it like that. or you could always just use VMWare like LSD said.

for more info on dual booting and virtual machines try Your one stop for Apple Boot Camp, Intel Macs, Dual Booting, Microsoft Windows XP and Mac OS X, Video Gaming on Macs

[wayout44]

Re: Is this possible?

Getting hardware compatibility might be your only prob but good luck with it.

[havn't a clue]

Re: Is this possible?

I do not know if you could dual boot with XP and 3.1, but I do know you could install all of those apps into a virtual machine like Vmware or Virtual PC and use them inside there.

You could make them into the same workgroup/network and transfer the files, or get a USB Male to Male and transfer them as well

And yes, you could ghost the system into a Virtual machine as well. Just create the partition/system drive and then run ghost as your normally would on any system to ghost the drive back into the virtual machine

Very unlikely that you could actually RUN these programs in xp though, with a virtual machine yeah. Or a dual boot if possible, but not directly in XP

I just wanted to thank you and everyone else for responding to my post. Since I am new at this, I intend to try both the dual boot and VM instructions I have received here just for the experience and knowledge. I may be able to help someone else at sometime.

Thank you and everyone else again!

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Is this possible?

Good luck, and keep us posted on your results for future users who may wonder the same