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Old PC Keeps switching off during boot sequence

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Grahamcole23

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Joined
Sep 25, 2023
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4
Hi folks

I’ve got a situation with an old Evesham pc that belonged to my Dad. Typically I need to get access to some old files on the hard drive that are only available using the software on it. This is an old filing cabinet system called PaperMaster Pro 98. Dad scanned everything into this software.

The PC will fire and go through POST and get through some of the start up processes but then switches off. Every time I switch the machine on it will only stay active for shorter and shorter periods of time. The power switch isn’t great so I have tried the power switch from an older pc that he had to no avail.

He also had an older Evesham Pc which I can fire up. However the problematic pc is on a SATA drive and the older computer that fires up doesn’t have a SATA controller on it and I don’t think the board is capable of running it.

Does anyone have thoughts on what I may be able to do to fix this problem.

I have previously tried cloning the drive but the software just won’t work in the emulator.

Any thoughts greatly appreciated
 
That would be my guess too. Is is really dirty inside? Maybe a good clean with some compressed air? If it's gunked up it will not cool properly. But could be something else inside too.
 
Plasma said:
Most likely bad caps in the PSU. I would just swap in an el cheapo replacement. Only needs to last a few months anyway.
Click to expand...

Sure, if you want him to potentially never be able to recover any files after it fries the hard drive and anything else when it explodes from being an IED.

If the data is only on one hard drive, accessible only on one computer, spend the money and get a quality power supply.
 
Morning folks. Based on your opinions I gave the psu a blast through with compressed air and it did manage to boot to windows loading screen but then switched off again.

I will try swapping the psu out of the other machine and see if this has any effect.

Thanks for the input all. 👍
 
Are you saying that PaperMaster Pro 98 wraps the scan in some proprietary file that can only be "opened" by that program? Most scanning programs use a standard file format, like TIFF, and the actual scan file can be accessed from other software. That program may be used to organize the scanned files but the files themselves may be in a readable format outside of that software. Have you tried using a file manager to search for image files and use an image viewer?

You should also be able to "clone" that hard drive using some software, like Clonezilla, so you can get at the data on the drive without loading up Win98.

Good luck,
Seaken
 
Hey Seaken

I've just found a back up of the data I found on a flash drive i had taken ages ago. I had forgotten that the data is stored in an mdb file format and can be opened by MSAccess however, and this is the bummer, the scans are all EFX files and of course EFax Messenger cannot be downloaded anymore without paying a ton of money for the software.
 
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That's how I read his post. He has to use this software to read the file or properly decode it. Then again I know nothing about scans. Maybe it is easier than I am thinking. Hopefully we will find out soon.
 
I too suggest there's a PSU issue. If dusting it out has not really improved the situation much there's something else tripping the supply out on safety and it's serious enough that de-asserting the DC-OK signal is not good enough.
 
Wow, I am shocked. I didn't know that people were using such programs for important document archival. Live and learn I guess. There does seem to be a solution to run your copy of PaperMaster 98 on Windows 10 64-bit. Hopefully, if all else fails the OP can get at the scans on a Windows 10 PC.

I have always used a shared format for scans so that I can just move the data from one system to another. Of course it's easier now with PDF but we had PostScript, TIFF, even PCX. Any of those would not lock your data into some proprietary format. You could always encrypt the standard file using some encryption techniques if needed. This proprietary lock-down of my data is why I have always avoided proprietary format for my data. It's my data (or my business) and I need control. I can't afford to lose access if I update my computer systems from one OS to another. But I guess this happens more than I understood. I still use DBF file formats for my tables, or maybe some form of SQL. And image formats that can be opened with any open source viewer and printer. The closest I ever came to losing my data was when we used WordStar on CP/M and then moved to WordStar for Windows. What a joke! WordStar for Windows was NOT WordStar format. We ended up using WordStar 5.5 in DOS to convert to a more standard format. Now we use Open Document for those types of files.

With all this said I can see someone using a proprietary format to scan their documents not knowing the format was not portable. Now the next generation is caught trying to unlock the data that has been "captured" by some corporation into some non-standard proprietary format requiring the expertise of a wizard to unlock after said corporation called it quits.

I had my dad write everything in plain text files. Then I showed him how to import that text into a DTP layout or a WP. But always started with a plain text file so we didn't lose anything. Same with scans. We scanned images to TIFF. Text sometimes into OCR. Then that image can be imported. But always saved in some standard format. We used a file system for sorting but the images were always plain standard.

Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent. Sorry about that. I did some reading and it does seem possible to convert the files from PageMaster 98. But it will cost some money and the use of more proprietary software. Hopefully, the OP can get the machine to stay on long enough to "export" or "print" the scans that are important once inside the program.

Seaken
 
Yes the sad thing is Dad got very paranoid about backups and at one stage had four computers on his desk as he was nervous about loosing data. He bought into this PaperMasterPro software decades ago and never moved away from it. So of course now I need to find some information for my Mother and I'm stuck with this headache, lol
 
I would check the motherboard and power supply for leaky or bulging capacitors. I had a pc 13 years ago that would flake out occasionally, then get progressively worse until it wouldn't power up at all. The caps near the cpu had bulged, and I feared the same thing going on inside the psu.

A power supply is a quick and simple fix for most pc's with boot or power-up problems. Over the years I have run into several which would appear to run ok after they have been sitting unplugged (discharged) for awhile, and i attribute that to the charge state of the capacitors.
 
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