Okay, here's the deal. My win98 PC has crashed, and now I can only boot into c: via a startup floppy. I need to reformat the drive before reinstalling windows, and I want to rescue some files before doing this. I plug the PC with only c: showing into the XP PC via USB, but the XP machine doesn't see the other PC. I guess I need drivers and strings in config.sys and autoexec.bat??? Please help. Thanks.

You could probably install laplink and send the files across using the serial ports. Alternativley if the files are not too large/or many, pkzip or winzip could be used to write them to floppy disks. Good luck - Keep us posted.

Use the following http://www.briggsoft.com/fmdos.htm Try also the Win 32 trial version, it allowes for 25 shots and I found it wonderfull to escape from exactly your case (Win 98 to XP with 98 PC accessed via a FreeDOS bootable diskette). You only need a crossover parallel cable and you are done in one shot.

For what you are trying to do, first you would have to install USB support for DOS. Then you would need the file transfer software. Best you try the above suggestions or temporarily install the W98 drive in the XP system and copy the data off.

http://www.catc.com/products/EL200.html This is an Ethernet to USB adaptor for DOS, you can buy a similar dongle for Windows, therefore using a Xover RJ45 Cable to join the two should enable TCP/IP networking with M$ Network Client 3.0 on the standalone DOS PC.