Upgrade issue - old CNC machine, new computer

Hello and happy new year!

I am new to LinuxCNC and are now stuck after an old computer stopped working.
I am humbly asking the community for any help and -or advise.

When i started to work on this machine, the system was as follows:
- Old CNCmachine controlling the rigg,
- CNCmachine was connected with LPT1
- Computer OS (computer no.2) was version 2 (ubuntu based LinuxCNC). (256MB RAM - and just very old)

The system had some issues with low resolution, so i decided to upgrade the computer. After shutting down the computer for upgrade, the computer was dead. I had to replace the whole computer and install the latest LinuxCNC. On the new computer, there was no parport, so i bought a cheap PCI-Parport card and mounted everything for testing.
However, when i detached the HDD to extract the config files, I could only extract some of the user files before the HDD stopped spinning.

My problem now is that I have no clue on what system is connected and how to configure it.
When running LinuxCNC I get a ton of different option i do not know what is doing.
I decided to try step-config, and did get an old config file from the guy that installed the system for more than 10 years ago.
However, when testing, i get no respons from the CNCmachine.

Do anyone have any advise on how to get this system up and going again?
Any advise would be appreciated.

I will off course share the progress if anyone find them-self in a similar situation

I got 5V (+ a few digits). However, when moving around in axis using the arrows, there was no change in the readings, and no reaction from the mill what so ever. I did use the same pin layout, and I know the last parport sent out 5V. When starting Axis, the motors "Clicks", so there is something going thru. I`m starting to think the issue might be with the TTL logic, but that again is strange, since everything worked just fine until I upgraded the the pc connected to the dedicated TTL controller pc.

I also got some errors (Joint 1 and 2 follow error, and joint 1 + 2 error)

That I do not know, or how to check. I first tried to load the old config files, and after that failed, I created a new config set using the wizard for step-config, and then copying over the appropriate .HAL and .INI settings. It is supposed to be exactly as the old setup. I do see though that the new config files created have a lot of more settings, and I cant even start AXIS if I try to remove some of the extra settings. Now I am really stuck and don`t know what to try next.