HELP: Agilent E8358A PNA HDD Failure - Looking for 500MHz CPU Image

[Arthur_Dent129]

Hi everyone,

The original HDD of my Agilent E8358A (PNA) has died. I am trying to restore it on a new SSD.


My Specs:

Model: E8358A

CPU Board: 500 MHz

OS: Windows XP (was originally Win2000, I believe)

I have managed to save the "Program Files" folder from the old drive, but I lack the OS structure, drivers for the measurement boards, and registry settings.

Does anyone have a Ghost/Acronis image or a recovery ISO for this specific 500MHz hardware generation?


I have already made some progress: I installed an SSD and managed to get a minimal Windows environment (WinPE/minint) to boot. The SSD is recognized and I can access the command prompt.

Attached are two photos of the start and the BIOS from the SSD.

However, when I try to run the 835x.exe from my backup, nothing happens—no error message, no window, it just returns to the prompt. I suspect many DLLs, registry entries, and hardware drivers are missing in this environment. Since Keysight doesn't support these legacy units anymore, I'm trying to rebuild the OS from scratch or find a working image. It would be a tragedy to scrap such a high-end instrument just because of a dead hard drive!

Any help in getting this old lady back to life would be highly appreciated!



Thanks!

Arthur

[nctnico]

I'd try to widen the search and figure out which machines are based on the same architecture. Chances are they run mostly the same software so a hard drive image from a similar enough machine might solve your problem.