old disk access

[Robert Heller]

At Wed, 15 May 2019 19:08:42 -0700 "Ubuntu user technical support,  not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:

> 
> On Wed, 15 May 2019 21:58:40 +0100
> Peter Flynn <peter at silmaril.ie> wrote:
> 
> > On 15/05/2019 21:47, rikona wrote:
> > > 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?  
> > 
> > How are you connecting these drives to your system? That is, what
> > kind of cable, what kind of connectors, and what is the other end
> > plugged into? 
> 
> I'm using a Vantec IDE/SATA to USB3 adapter, plugged into my Ubuntu
> 16.04 box. It has 3 different disk connectors on the adapter, for
> different kinds of disks. I've been able to see and copy from about a
> dozen old IDE and SATA drives. I copy a bit from these old drives to a
> second USB3, a Sabrent HD docking station with a 2TB SATA drive in
> there.

There is a possibility (unlikely if these were all boot/system disks) that
they are jumppered as "slave". PATA/IDE disks were designed to have two
devices on one cable, with the second device jumpered as a slave. (Commonly
the boot disk would be the "master" and the CDROM (maybe! DVDROM) drive would
be the slave). There should be a place for two shorting jumpers next to the
cable header and there should be instructions on the label for setting the
drive for master (what you want) or slave.

> 
> > Most PC-type systems I have seen come with only two
> > hard drive connectors, so I assume one of those is your main drive
> > where your Ubuntu is installed which you're running, and you're using
> > the other connection for these old disks, one by one. Is that right?
> 
> No direct connection to the MB. Case stays closed. :-)
> 
> > If my memory is right, PC-style connections for ATA hard disks meant
> > the disks had to be configured as Master or Slave, depending on
> > whether they were meant to be the primary boot disk or not. To change
> > configurations you need to move a tiny little jumper between pins,
> > for which you need to refer to a little map of the pins printed next
> > to them, or have a copy of the original disk drive documentation :-)
> 
> Some do have these jumpers but docs are long gone. :-( Some may have
> been in a comp with multiple drives - I vaguely remember that this may
> need jumper changes. Any thoughts as to how they should be configured to
> run in the above USB configuration?

They should be "master".  There is *usually* something on the drive label 
itself with the info you need.

> 
> > 
> > Peter
> > 
> 
> 

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