Old ATA / IDE drive

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cddt

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#318450 18-Jan-2025 21:08

I've uncovered an old ATA drive from 2002 which I thought was lost many years ago. There's a chance it may have some interesting data on it - i.e. photos from 20+ years ago. There's also a chance it could just have random crap which is of no interest to me any longer.

I'm well aware it may not work, given the time which has passed.

Any "gotchas" I should be aware of when working with a drive like this? The jumper currently seems to be set to "master / single drive" but that's not my recollection of how it was used... There's also a jumper option for "enable cable select"?

My referral links: BigPipe | Mercury

xpd

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#3333072 18-Jan-2025 21:33

Leave it as it is. Find an external enclosure for it and power it on :)

I still have my original Amiga SCSI 120MB drive (1995 ?) which spun up fine and let me boot from it (via WinUAE) years ago (had to find an old SCSI card first :D )

XPD / Gavin

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openmedia

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#3333076 18-Jan-2025 22:06

First thing I'd do is create a full backup image of the drive on a different device. At that age it could drop dead at any time.

I've done a few IDE recoveries recently and I usually use ddrescue under Linux which is great at working around any failed sectors on the device.

Generally known online as OpenMedia, now working for Red Hat APAC as a Technology Evangelist and Portfolio Architect. Still playing with MythTV and digital media on the side.

fe31nz

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#3333084 18-Jan-2025 22:32

cddt:

I've uncovered an old ATA drive from 2002 which I thought was lost many years ago. There's a chance it may have some interesting data on it - i.e. photos from 20+ years ago. There's also a chance it could just have random crap which is of no interest to me any longer.

I'm well aware it may not work, given the time which has passed.

Any "gotchas" I should be aware of when working with a drive like this? The jumper currently seems to be set to "master / single drive" but that's not my recollection of how it was used... There's also a jumper option for "enable cable select"?

The "cable select" option relies on a cable that has the select pins on each connector, or builtin termination resistors on the cable itself. They do exist, but you are much more likely to have an ordinary cable and will need to do the master / slave selection on the drive. The master selection turns on the termination resistors and it should be on for only one drive on the cable and that drive should be on the connector at the far end of the cable. The other drive on the cable should have the master option turned off (jumper removed or in the slave position, depending on how the drive does this). Never run one single drive in slave mode or not on the end connector - it may seem to work but you are likely to get lots of transmission errors.

cddt

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#3333181 19-Jan-2025 13:22

Thank you everyone for the useful information.

I have checked with a friend who has many boxes of old equipment as to whether he has something I can borrow, if that doesn't work out then I'll be posting a "Wanted to Buy/Borrow"...

My referral links: BigPipe | Mercury

cddt

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#3338594 3-Feb-2025 14:49

Successfully recovered all data from this 23 year old drive! Not nearly as interesting as I would like, but still a few nuggets...

My referral links: BigPipe | Mercury

ANglEAUT

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#3338636 3-Feb-2025 16:33

Did you find your photos?

Any lost Bitcoin wallets? 😉🤑🤣🤑

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