Is it possible to plug in a very old hard drive to current computer?

FlyingPenguins · 03-20-2009, 02:49 AM

I have a very old hard drive (three, actually) - I believe the hard drives were made sometime around 1991-1995. I had some documents from there that I want to retrieve, but the monitor for the computers that held the drives in broke, and I'm not willing to search eBay for an heavy, obsolete monitor that can only connect through a parallel port, then I would have to dispose of later on...

I'm pretty sure that the three drives connect via IDE ports. One of them is a Western Digital Caviar 2340, with 341.2 MB capacity, manufactured in 1993 - I'm not too sure about the other two at the moment. My current computer has a 80 GB hard drive also connected via IDE.

Would it seem possible to hook up those old hard drives onto the new computer? Are all the connector ports for the cables and such on the old disks also found on the new drives? If so, is it safe, or is there a chance it corrupt the data on my current hard drive?

Tumbleweed36 · 03-20-2009, 03:05 AM

I don't think it would harm anything. Just make sure you set the old drives up as slave on your computer and give it a go. BTW, make sure the drives already on there are configured as master drives. That way, each cable would have a master and a slave.

03-20-2009, 02:49 AM	#1 (permalink)
FlyingPenguins Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 122 OS: Dual-booting Windows XP SP3 (main OS), Mandriva Linux 2008 My System	Is it possible to plug in a very old hard drive to current computer? I have a very old hard drive (three, actually) - I believe the hard drives were made sometime around 1991-1995. I had some documents from there that I want to retrieve, but the monitor for the computers that held the drives in broke, and I'm not willing to search eBay for an heavy, obsolete monitor that can only connect through a parallel port, then I would have to dispose of later on... I'm pretty sure that the three drives connect via IDE ports. One of them is a Western Digital Caviar 2340, with 341.2 MB capacity, manufactured in 1993 - I'm not too sure about the other two at the moment. My current computer has a 80 GB hard drive also connected via IDE. Would it seem possible to hook up those old hard drives onto the new computer? Are all the connector ports for the cables and such on the old disks also found on the new drives? If so, is it safe, or is there a chance it corrupt the data on my current hard drive?

03-20-2009, 03:05 AM	#2 (permalink)
Tumbleweed36 Asst Manager Hardware Join Date: May 2005 Location: USA Posts: 19,672 OS: XP Professional	Re: Is it possible to plug in a very old hard drive to current computer? I don't think it would harm anything. Just make sure you set the old drives up as slave on your computer and give it a go. BTW, make sure the drives already on there are configured as master drives. That way, each cable would have a master and a slave. __________________ ---------- I don't receive email notifications of replies to subscribed threads. (Internet provider policy) Therefore, if I don't respond to your post within 24 hours, please send me a reminder PM and include the link to your thread.