GlobalVR Arcade Classics's JoshuaOS Issues

[McJones9631]

So we purchased the GlobalVR Arcade Classics cabinet when it was new back in 2007. It has been a great machine for the last decade or so, but now we have an issue. The IDE hard drive, now celebrating its 14th year on this planet in August, and boy is it showing. The drive has suddenly started making some solid clicking noises, which (being in the tech repair trade) is a sign of impending hard drive death. (Also, it's IDE, who would think this drive would've lasted so long?) So I purchased a 2.5" Western Digital SSD like I always do to replace the drive and clone everything over to it. Well, it sounded simple enough.

This cabinet is running a OS called JoshuaOS. From what I've been able to find, which isn't much, is that JoshuaOS is completely proprietary. It also isn't mountable. So, after four days of struggling with every option humanly imaginable to get this to work, I officially am out of ideas. I would really like to not lose everything from this drive, all the high scores, all the everything. That's like 14 years worth of games and memories I really much prefer not losing when this drive dies. Is there anything I can do to be able to salvage and clone this drive?

[DigDigDug]

I too have a fully loaded Ultracade from about the same time period, and it is having the same aging issues. From what I've heard the license keys are tied to hardware IDs of components. If that means the hard drive, then a sector level copy & swap won't work. But I can't test that the moment as the cabinet has decided it no longer wants to power on. My plan is using my Fideco drive cloner -- no mounting required. Have you attempted something like this?