Ancient Hard Drive Advice

[Jared]

Now I need some advice from a data recovery old timer. Same day as I get in my first 8Tb for recovery I also get in a 420Mb drive for recovery (yes Mb not Gb). They actually brought in a supposedly good same model drive in case I need parts for it, but I can't seem to interface with it.

I realize it's probably too old for PC-3000 UDMA to even support it. And, I'm betting that it's a CHS drive rather than LBA. Anyone know an easy way to interface this old dinosaur with a modern PC at least? This is the oldest yet for me.

 

[jol]

I realize it's probably too old for PC-3000 UDMA to even support it.

right, pc3K isa will support that drive

And, I'm betting that it's a CHS drive rather than LBA.

also right

Anyone know an easy way to interface this old dinosaur with a modern PC at least?

i don't think so, pentium I will do (there are also some pemtiem II (not all of them) that can support it)
maybe, just maybe, you can try a pentium 4 with ISA slot on it and use an ISA IDE I/O controller, never tried it

 

[hddguy]

Boot it from BIOS at an older PC with IDE connection, boot hirens Boot CD with MEdia Tools installed, clone to a new drive or recover to FAT32 formatted destination.

 

[Jared]

I've tried that using both original, and a supposedly good donor, but neither show capacity or even ID in BIOS. I've tried using auto mode, and tried manually entering in the C/H/S specs as listed on the label but same results. I'm starting to think that these drives are both bad, or they did something like PCB replacement before sending here.

 

[jol]

Maybe your BIOS doesn't support C/H/S ?
Have you tried with a good C/H/S HDD ?

 

[Jared]

I'm pretty sure it supports CHS as I can set it to that and even manually define the CHS values. Just that it doesn't seem to see anything connected regardless of which drive I connect. I'll be playing around with it more tomorrow.

 

[jol]

in the new Ver. 6.0.14 of PC-3000 it says

it has become possible to choose SATA mode (SATA-I/SATA-II) and PIO Mode (0..4) for PC-3000 Express & UDMA-E boards. This feature is helpful for working with old HDDs that may work unstable in the SATA compatibility mode or may fail to support the PIO4 mode

 

[Jared]

Interesting. I'm setting up my new express card today so will have to try that out to see. Thanks!

 

[jol]

do you have already the new ver. ?

 

[Jared]

I just got my Express card so it comes with 30 days support and update. Is it already on the update server? I haven't checked and I'm not exactly sure what version is on the DVD they sent with it.