Connecting laptop via ser

Try using a USB flash memory drive....

wrote in message
ups.com...
I need to network my laptop to my desktop so the laptop sees a virtual
drive letter that's actually a directory on the desktop. The laptop is
an older PIII with Serial, parallel, USB 1.1 - no ethernet. Windows has
"direct cable connection" for serial/parallel, but Mircrosoft says
"Before you can transfer files from the host to the guest computer, the
files must be in a shared directory,..."

(http://www.microsoft.com/technet/arc...rkc19.mspx?mfr
=true).

The desktop is a newer Athlon 1.0Ghz with XP Pro. The laptop is a PIII
500mhz with 98SE. The laptops serial port is an EIA232-E, 16550
compatible, 9-pin D; the parallel port is IEEE P1284-A, EPP, and ECP
compatible. Which connection would be faster (serial/parallel) - an
article on Wiipedia says asynchronous RS232 is actually faster than
parallel at higher CPU clock speeds due to "skew" caused by the
parallel cable. I'll probably just get a NULL serial cable, because I
expect it to be cheaper, and I won't be needing it again - if this will
work.

The reason I need this is that files were accidently deleted from the
laptop via DOS. The file recovery software can see them, and it asks
for a drive/directory to save the restored files in - so I need a
virtual drive letter - the desktop computer. I don't want to save the
restored files locally first, because that could corrupt the other
deleted files. (I don't want to buy a network card for the laptop,
because I don't want to install software for it...)

Any help appreciated.