I'm sure it is using some type of drivers to communicate with the machine. It's a pretty high tech machine that does vaccuum metallurgy coating (like holograms). Only two of these machines were ever built, the other one is in Germany and the company has refused to share an image of the HDD in their machine.
Anyway, they're putting our clone with the rebuilt registry file back in this morning. So we'll soon find out if it worked. I was actually more looking for someone who might want to remotely try to help these guys if it doesn't work. My contract ends at recovering the data from the failed drive. We rebuild the registry file just as a courtesy to give it the best shot at booting.
@NETWizz you seem to be pretty knowledgable about this stuff. If they need the help, would you be interested in some paid remote work for them? (they're willing to pay generously to get this back up ASAP)
Thanks for the plug. Honestly, I would leave it at where your contract ends if I were on this one. It certainly cannot hurt that you went above and beyond providing customer service to to fix the registry to give it a shot at booting.The danger is if they expect you to somehow warrant your work. I guess the good thing is the Windows 95 Registry is a bit smaller than most, so it is more likely to work.
At any rate, this is really not the type of project I take on. I do not like supporting PCs of any kind including my own. I like dealing with computers owned by other people even less. This special purpose rig running a 24 year old copy of Windows is ancient. When I first started working with my primary source of income being from IT back in 2004, we were getting rid of the last Windows 98SE machines where I worked. I haven't even seen a Windows 9x box since probably 2006. I did used to actively support them though, and they are just stripped-down, simplified versions of Windows.
I would rater recover a bricked Cisco switch where someone deleted the IOS while also forgetting the password. Honestly, when it comes to Windows, I only ever fix my stuff now, and often that waits six months to a year. My GF was complaining about a laptop jack being broken on an old Dell 15 laptop from 2011. I kept saying I was going to fix it. Well I finally fixed it when she came home with a $450 estimate from the local big-box store... and only because I was either fix it it or paying someone else to fix it.
******
This kind of work, you need someone who can show up on-site in my opinion. They probably need to spend hours reading any binders of documentation, looking at old software, researching the net etc. Probably would be making images of the HDD before trying anything or attempting to migrate it.
The real problem is that it probably uses VXD or other old-school drivers that primarily use Real-Mode instead of Protected-Mode memory. Simply put, the modern NT variants of Windows have a Hardware Abstraction Layer and protected-memory to ensure you can only talk to hardware through various APIs.
Now perhaps the software is written correctly on this and uses a native Windows API for say the serial port. Chances are good plugging in a USB serial port and configuring it to be on the proper COM port in device manager would allow it to still work with old code using those APIs, but if it decides to talk directly to the hardware, it is simply not going to work on any NT flavored Windows.
