old disk access

[rikona]

Some of the old disks I'm trying to access are likely quite old - in
the 250 to 750 MB range. Same connectors as old but larger disks
[1GB and up] that I can access. In disks they just show up as generic
ATA/ATAPI and it says "no media". A couple did a lot of
screeching/beeping before they finally decided to run, but none of the
very small ones show as a disk. What may be preventing me from accessing
those smaller disks?