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31 votes
Accepted

Discovering intended cable orientation with an older IDE controller

This answer is also generic to other applications using this sort of connector (confusing known as IDC- insulation displacement connector), which may have just about any number of pins, not just the ...
  • 466
18 votes
Accepted

When was "Cable Select" introduced for IDE devices?

Cable Select (CS) appeared as an optional component of ANSI standard X3.221-1994 in 1994, the first published standard describing “IDE” (and later known as ATA-1). This also seems to correspond to the ...
13 votes
Accepted

What cable is needed to connect a drive to an older IDE controller socket with all 40 pins?

I don't think it really has a name. It's still an IDE connector, but when Ultra-ATA/66 came along it changed the cable to the 80-wire cable, and that's when the blocked pin really came along (and also ...
  • 1,020
13 votes

Old Conner IDE hard drives that are mistakenly detected as being 2TB, how do I connect to and image them?

You’re running into compatibility issues with very old drives. In this particular case, your drives are new enough to support the ATA “identify device” command (which is how your hwinfo input includes ...
11 votes
Accepted

How to access old laptop IDE hard drive

The easiest way is to get an external USB enclosure or USB-to-IDE adapter. IDE-to-SATA adapters exist, but they require opening up your computer to install. When selecting hardware, keep in mind ...
  • 8,462
11 votes

How to read a 104 MB Conner hard drive from 1990

The USB enclosure is intended for much newer drives. It can't understand so old drive with no LBA support. The drive needs to be connected directly to motherboard IDE or PCI IDE adapter for better ...
  • 24.2k
10 votes
Accepted

Did PATA controllers break backwards compatibilty at some point?

The controller shouldn’t cause problems, because the interface is largely backwards-compatible — so unless you have a drive which doesn’t quite adhere to the “spec”, it should be able to talk to the ...
10 votes
Accepted

How did Parallel ATA/IDE Independent Device Timing work electrically?

I think I found the main part of the answer by searching through a standards document. IDE connectors have some dedicated and re-purposed signal lines specifically for DMA. Some of these stay ...
  • 363
10 votes

Discovering intended cable orientation with an older IDE controller

In this case the pin numbers are marked, which makes it straightforward like user85471's answer shows. But if that is not the case, you can use a multimeter or a continuity tester. This method will ...
  • 1,416
9 votes

Discovering intended cable orientation with an older IDE controller

Generically, when designing a PCB it is common practice for through-hole connector footprints to have round pads, except for pin 1 which is square. This can often be seen on the reverse side of the ...
9 votes
Accepted

How to build an ATA controller for the AT bus?

A proper ISA IDE interface is quite simple, but not as easy as it might sound. There are some strange corner cases you should consider for full AT compatibility. You can find schematics for ISA IDE ...
9 votes

Steps to recover data from Conner CP341

The hard drive is so old that it pre-dates the era of auto-detecting the drive parameters. If the USB adapter cannot determine the correct drive parameters automatically then there is no way to force ...
  • 24.2k
9 votes

I have old hardware; what can I use it for?

So, you need to translate the IDE interface to something. Since the controller on the hard drive can't just be easily swapped (can't just put the platters into some random SATA drive), your options ...
  • 1,020
8 votes

How do I connect an IDE hard drive to an Amiga 4000 tower?

The Amiga A4000T is the only Amiga to include both a SCSI-II controller and an IDE interface on the motherboard. And, if you can believe the entry in the BBOAH is also THE RAREST home computer ever, ...
  • 59.1k
8 votes

What cable is needed to connect a drive to an older IDE controller socket with all 40 pins?

When I've found myself in that situation I've drilled out the blocked pin (on the cable side). Never had a problem.
  • 6,552
7 votes

What cable is needed to connect a drive to an older IDE controller socket with all 40 pins?

Connectors specific to one protocol are a relatively modern thing. In the old days connectors were made by connector manufacturers and then equipment makers bought them and used them as they saw fit. ...
  • 2,537
7 votes
Accepted

Multiple mass storage controllers on Amiga 500 or 2000

The Amiga can support multiple mass storage controllers, subject to the following necessary limitations: Any time multiple controllers are using AutoConfig, each controller must correctly support the ...
  • 59.1k
6 votes

Steps to recover data from Conner CP341

@Justme has covered the topic of drive detection, but since the question is requesting "next steps" for data recovery I'd like to speak to reading the data once your hardware is able to "see" the ...
6 votes

Recover files from Dell PP04L Hard Drive

A laptop of the vintage you mention will most likely have a 2.5-inch IDE, PATA (Parallel ATA), hard disk drive. Of course, you will need to disassemble the laptop and remove the drive to confirm. Once ...
  • 59.1k
5 votes

386 laptop: reads MBR, cannot boot DOS 6.22

It looks I got lucky, otherwise it would have been a long road. Apparently this laptop has a ROM-DOS on board in the socket. Due to bad contact it was not detected at startup. After I reinserted ...
5 votes
Accepted

Jumper settings for IDE controller

After some more digging I actually found the card on stason.org: http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-disk-floppy-controllers/I-L/INFOMATIC-POWER-SYSTEMS-CORPORATION-Two-IDE-AT-Int.html The layout and ...
  • 1,264
5 votes

Jumper settings for IDE controller

This document should tell you all. These jumpers configure state of the multi I/O card devices, and their port locations. The document states different chip UM82C865F, but the jumper functionality ...
  • 1,248
5 votes

Recover files from Dell PP04L Hard Drive

My condolences. You can hook up that (assumed) ATA harddisk using an appropriate USB adapter (you'll need the 44-pin type for 2.5" drives, thx Brian) - many electronic shops still stock ATA/SATA-to-...
  • 3,793
5 votes

How to read a 104 MB Conner hard drive from 1990

I never got the USB connection to work, those who thought it was at fault were correct. I ultimately found an old tower running Windows 10 that had an unused EIDE connection, plugged the 40 wire IDE ...
4 votes

How to access old laptop IDE hard drive

I bought a IDE to USB converter from a local store.There were two extra pins on my hard drive so I had to do some fiddling and connect the AC power supply I connected the adapter to my Linux laptop (...
3 votes

Best IRIX Integrated Development Environment for C++ Programming

SGI was one of the leading vendors to put a modern touch around X/Motif. IRIX came with ViewKit and OpenInventor, plus some SGI-specific libraries to handle desktop integration, all part of SGI's ...
  • 30.1k
3 votes

How to build an ATA controller for the AT bus?

How to build an ATA controller for the AT bus? You can't, as there isn't any. You want to connect IDE-Drives, right? IDE stands for Integrated Device Electronics. Which simply means that the full ...
  • 195k
3 votes

What cable is needed to connect a drive to an older IDE controller socket with all 40 pins?

A lot of the cables that I have used just have a plastic pin pushed into the hole. It looks like yours is this style. Take a straight pin and go at it from one of the corners and you should be able ...
  • 31
3 votes

What cable is needed to connect a drive to an older IDE controller socket with all 40 pins?

This "non-existing" pin is just a key that allowed to position properly the cable. Nowadays, like in your upper photo, you have part of the plastic removed, where the key from the cable goes....
  • 31
3 votes
Accepted

Installing 98SE without USB/CDROM to IDE drive - Invalid System Disk

I have a Compaq LTE 5150, which is very similar to the kit you have. You won't be able to boot it with a hard disk larger than 8 GB, at least I have never been successful. Even using On-Track, it ...
  • 236

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