Old Hard Drive

[tuky]

Hello folks, I wonder if someone could help me out a little.

I have just been sent my old hard drive from my PC in my old country.

I only have a laptop where I am at the moment.

I would like to connect to this drive to view the files as I have plenty of old photos and such that I don't want to lose.

This drive hasn't been used for atleast 5 years.

I was kinda hoping it would be as easy as replacing my 40gig portable usb drive with the old 13 gig one ( ie changing the drive out in the case), I don't have any tools at home to open the portable job to see if the connectors are compatible.

ANyway, how do I connect to a raw drive probably running Win98 on my XP machine without being able to actually plug it in (laptop).

Please see pics.

[Crossy]

Pantip et-al will sell you an IDE to USB lead and PSU for a few 100 Baht or for a bit more you can ger a nifty external case for a more permanent job

[tuky]

Pantip et-al will sell you an IDE to USB lead and PSU for a few 100 Baht or for a bit more you can ger a nifty external case for a more permanent job

Will It act as a portable memory? ie plug and play?

or will I need to do something else seeing as it is/was a functioning Win98 machine?

[Stekmer]

Yep it's a standard IDE Hard Disk Drive (HDD) and the cheapest way would be as Crossy has suggested.

You can buy a converter to plug into the back of the HDD, connect the power connector to the HDD and plug it into a USB port on your laptop.

The photo is pretty much how it should look like.

The Laptop will take a minute or two to recognize the USB drive but you should then be able to copy all the files you want from the old HDD.

Makes a good backup device as well - plus you can use the same connector to connect a DVD Burner or another laptop HDD.

Hope this helps.

Stekmer

[Rice_King]

Will It act as a portable memory? ie plug and play?

or will I need to do something else seeing as it is/was a functioning Win98 machine?

If you go with Crossy's method of an external enclosure, and you're using Windows XP / Vista for your OS, it will be a simple plug and play. Just plug it into a USB port and the OS detects the drive in a few seconds. This way, you can use it in a portable fashion and connect it to any machine that has USB ports.

If you're still using Win98 for an OS, I believe you'll need the USB drivers for the model of enclosure.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Rice_King

[tuky]

Thanks a lot guys, your rapid replies have been much appreciated.

Now after 5 years of sitting idle I hope the thing still works.

I will buy the parts tomorrow and let you know how I get on, perhaps with a special pic or two

[JustAnotherFarang]

Now we know why its valuable

5 years of mucky pictures waiting to be redeveloped me thinks

JAF

[monty]

Just make sure you set the jumpers on the drive to be MASTER.

These USB/IDE converters tend to get confused if the jumpers are set to Cable select or slave!

[tuky]

Just make sure you set the jumpers on the drive to be MASTER.

These USB/IDE converters tend to get confused if the jumpers are set to Cable select or slave!

?

Wouldn't my laptop be the master? and the new (old) drive be the slave?

or this due to the operating sytem difference?

[h90]

Just make sure you set the jumpers on the drive to be MASTER.

These USB/IDE converters tend to get confused if the jumpers are set to Cable select or slave!

?

Wouldn't my laptop be the master? and the new (old) drive be the slave?

or this due to the operating sytem difference?

No thats just for the USB thing. For your lapi, it is just a removable drive. For the laptop it is like an usb stick.

[monty]

Master and slave only is used when connecting two drives to the same IDE port (which are only used for internally installed drives).

Since you'll be using the USB port to hook up the drive to your laptop (or any other PC) master and slave is not used...

It's just the small bit of electronics converting the IDE signals of your old drive to USB signals that might get confused if the drive is not set to master...

[astral]

Buy the external case and mount the disk in there.

This is the one I have, with a 300Gb disk installed.

I use it to backup the entire contents of my 80Gb laptop disk

and store hollywood films for viewing.

[cdnvic]

Handy when you have a laptop as you can use it to back up frequently in case the laptop gets stolen or broken.

[Thaising]

Now I learn one or two things from you experts, was thinking to destroy and crash my very old hard disk with a hammer. At least now I could find out what old data are in there by paying a small fee for the connecting kit.

[tuky]

hmm, it didn't work.

I have it connected, thepower light of the box is on, the drive is jumpered to master but the pc will not recognise it. I went to disk management but it only sees the disk belonging to my lapi.

I cannot hear the drive doing anything, rotating or anything like that.

Any advice?

[cdnvic]

Do you have USB 2.0? 1.0 may not have enough power to run it.

[tuky]

Do you have USB 2.0? 1.0 may not have enough power to run it.

Ah, I have a compaq presario 2500 series, I just checked the spec online and it is USB 1.1.

However isn't the only difference between 1 and 2 the power supplied? if so the HDD case I bought has it's own 12V supply.

It also supports firewire and Serial, so perhaps I should try serial to USB(?) or firewire?

[Crossy]

Do you have USB 2.0? 1.0 may not have enough power to run it.

Ah, I have a compaq presario 2500 series, I just checked the spec online and it is USB 1.1.

However isn't the only difference between 1 and 2 the power supplied? if so the HDD case I bought has it's own 12V supply.

It also supports firewire and Serial, so perhaps I should try serial to USB(?) or firewire?

With it's own PSU you won't have any problems using USB 1, it will just be a bit slow transferring data.

IIRC USB 1 is 12Mbs and USB 2 is 400Mbs (or something like that) both can source 100mA at 5V (ish).

[allexx]

I also have this old 13GB Seagate HDD so I tried to wake it up by IDE to USB but failed. I can hear some funny sounds, rotating, but that’s it. My USB is 2,0 but the puter can’t find it. My OS is XP.

[astral]

It is best to buy a case with its own power supply.

The small ones for 2.5" drives ,that rely on USB for powe,r are notorious for misbehaving.

The bigger 3.5" cases always seem to have external power.

[Crossy]

It is best to buy a case with its own power supply.

The small ones for 2.5" drives ,that rely on USB for powe,r are notorious for misbehaving.

The bigger 3.5" cases always seem to have external power.

Agreed, I've got a couple of 2.5" cases that take power from the keyboard connector, they seem happier on my antique laptop

3.5" cases invariably have external (or at least mains) PSUs, most (all?) 3.5" drives need a 12V supply (as well as 5V) which doesn't appear on any of the regular PC ports.