Installing 1995 Hard Drive on a Current PC to get Old Files

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

Weird problem here, my father got a new PC finally and needs his old files from his 1995 AST Advantage 611 with 8MB RAM AND 500MB Hard Drive.

It has no internet at all, no modem jack, no USB slots, no CD writer, etc.

The only thing I thought I could use was the 3.5" floppy. So I bought a USB drive and disk but after many attempts his floppy disk drive just corrupts every new floppy I put into it.

So I can only think of 2 more options.
1) Somehow messing around with the serial and parallel ports, which is before my time, I wouldn't know where to start
2) Take out his 500MB Hard drive and install it on a bay in my current PC. This is my preferred option. Would a 1995 hard drive be similiar to install to a current one?! Just plug in the power cable and connection and away you go?!

Auvers

georgiecasey wrote: »

2) Take out his 500MB Hard drive and install it on a bay in my current PC. This is my preferred option. Would a 1995 hard drive be similiar to install to a current one?! Just plug in the power cable and connection and away you go?!

this would be your best option as its going to be an IDE connection or an IDE caddy could also be used

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

sugarman wrote: »

Yep, it SHOULD be just an old IDE disc drive.

Auvers wrote: »

this would be your best option as its going to be an IDE connection or an IDE caddy could also be used

Yeah, I know it's IDE. Good, I'll try that now.

Cheers

Morlar

Do you know if it is FAT16 or FAT32 ? Far as I remember W7 does not do FAT 16.

Skerries

thats just Thinist!

whoami1

Network cable?

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

whoami1 wrote: »

Network cable?

No ethernet card or any kinda of a network card.

Serial and parallel ports, that's it.

Overheal

professional data transfer service tbf. Someone who already has the necessary setup. Shouldn't cost you that much, less than 100 I would think but probably more than 50. It's Data Recovery from failed drives that causes the most headaches and costs considerably more.

truedoom

simplest solution:

http://www.ebay.ie/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570&_nkw=ide+to+usb

partyatmygaff

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/USB-2-0-IDE-Power-Adaptor-Cable-2-5-3-5-Hard-Drive-/250976543965?pt=UK_Computing_CablesConnectors_RL&hash=item3a6f5e24dd

Use a Windows XP Machine or a Windows XP virtual machine running in Windows 7 to access the drive. If your current desktop has an IDE port that would probably work too.

If all else fails, there are ways and means of transferring data over a serial port. It's incredibly slow though.

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

cheers for the ide to usb replies as i've just got around to this, managed to get the hard drive out, dust nearly killed me! went to put the hard drive in and of course my new PC is sata only with the old harddrive ide/parallel ata.

power cables don't seem to have changed much though. do i've to do any messing with jumpers on the old drive? i just can't fathom the idea that you can put a 16 year old drive into a new build and use it with no problems!

yoyo

georgiecasey wrote: »

cheers for the ide to usb replies as i've just got around to this, managed to get the hard drive out, dust nearly killed me! went to put the hard drive in and of course my new PC is sata only with the old harddrive ide/parallel ata.

power cables don't seem to have changed much though. do i've to do any messing with jumpers on the old drive? i just can't fathom the idea that you can put a 16 year old drive into a new build and use it with no problems!

Set the jumper to "Cable Select" so you shouldn't run into any issues. I would just use the hard disk for purpose of getting data off it and stopping then, old hard drives will work slower and may fail at any stage

Nick

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

yoyo wrote: »

Set the jumper to "Cable Select" so you shouldn't run into any issues. I would just use the hard disk for purpose of getting data off it and stopping then, old hard drives will work slower and may fail at any stage

Nick

ya, for sure, i've no intention of permanently parking a 650MB drive beside my two 1TB drives! i'm grabbing everything and then it's going in the bin.

Firblog

Use the data cable from the old PC as the cable in the new machine will be too 'fast' for the old drive; also set the jumpers to cable select

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

Firblog wrote: »

Use the data cable from the old PC as the cable in the new machine will be too 'fast' for the old drive; also set the jumpers to cable select

Interesting, I never thought of that. If I buy something like this (http://www.ebay.ie/itm/USB-2-0-SATA-IDE-Cable-Adapter-External-Hard-Disk-HDD-H173-/250992155667) can I set what speed of Parallel ATA connection it uses. I assume my old hard drive data rate is 16 MB/s.

Can trying to transfer data too quick damage the drive?

BostonB

Firblog wrote: »

Use the data cable from the old PC as the cable in the new machine will be too 'fast' for the old drive; also set the jumpers to cable select

Can you explain that. I'm open to correction but that doesn't sound right. I've never heard that one before. The IDE controller will dictate the speed not the cable. It will know its an IDE drive. Not that a IDE drive can push data any quicker than it was designed to do. AFAIK. I don't remember ever having that problem over the years.

yoyo

BostonB wrote: »

Can you explain that. I'm open to correction but that doesn't sound right. I've never heard that one before. The IDE controller will dictate the speed not the cable. It will know its an IDE drive. Not that a IDE drive can push data any quicker than it was designed to do. AFAIK. I don't remember ever having that problem over the years.

Your right, the op would want to use the correct cable, I don't think 40/80pin cables are backwards compatible, ruined an old IDE hard disk one time when drunk forcing a old cable onto it, bent a few pins . lol

Nick

BostonB

I don't think you're right. I think the 80-conductor cable IS backward compatible with 40 pin drives.

Aside from the above, the cable can be treated the same way as a 40-conductor cable. Since it is of higher quality, it can be used in place of a 40-conductor cable in older systems without any issues

http://pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCable80-c.html

How Does It Work?
Every other line of the 80 conductor cables is tied to ground inside the connector. This results in a much better signal quality as the crosstalk (signals from adjacent lines coupling into each other) and ground bounce are greatly reduced. The cable is backward compatible with all old ATA drives, other than 2.5" drives. The connectors still have 40 pin sockets. Ultra ATA/66/100 drives still have 40 pin connectors.

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/1595

I don't think speed comes into it at all. If Firblog has some info otherwise perhaps he could elaborate.

I was in IT when these 80 pin cables came out and I don't ever remember it being an issue.

Firblog

Well I didn't investigate it too much, but was getting info from old 95 pc last week, put the old drive into a caddy, no good; connected it to my pc no good; grabbed the data cable from the cd drive and used it to hook up and voila it worked,

perhaps the drive I was working with was not 66/100 but 16/33? prob shouldn't make a difference but it worked lol..

BostonB

Firblog wrote: »

..perhaps the drive I was working with was not 66/100 but 16/33? ..

I'm lost. Do you mean machine speed???

Giblet

IDE speed

BostonB

The problem with these drives was always jumper settings.

Firblog

Set the one I was working on to cable select

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

Just an update to anyone who cares, got the IDE to USB kit from Ebay for the bones of 10 euros, plugged it all in expecting problems or worse, data corruption but it all worked fine. Just popped us a drive in Windows7 and I copied all 500megs across at 1mb/second, job done.

Cheers for the help.

yoyo

georgiecasey wrote: »

Just an update to anyone who cares, got the IDE to USB kit from Ebay for the bones of 10 euros, plugged it all in expecting problems or worse, data corruption but it all worked fine. Just popped us a drive in Windows7 and I copied all 500megs across at 1mb/second, job done.

Cheers for the help.

Nice one . Drive can go to the museum now lol

Nick