External hard drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve P
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Steve P

I started pulling any usable parts out of 4 old computers that were taking
up too much space. Only got 2 usable HDs out of ~1hr work. One 2 Gig, one
540 Mb. While clearing out old files from the pre-existing recycle bins on
the drives they acted very strange. They seemed to import all the contents
from the main C drive recycle bin.

I'm sure it would have made more sense to just buy a few USB thumbdrives,
but it was very nostalgic to see again all the DOS based games(Commander
Keen, Lemmings, etc.) and such stuff. They don't work so well on XP.

Just deleting the contents from the old drives took 1/2 hr for 540Mb, 45min.
for 2Gig and some files such as change.log in the restore folder in System
Volume Information could not be deleted. It claimed to be in use.

I'm wondering the description or type of an older HD that has 2 5/8" wide
connector instead of the standard 2 1/8" wide connector?
 
Steve said:
I started pulling any usable parts out of 4 old computers that were taking
up too much space. Only got 2 usable HDs out of ~1hr work. One 2 Gig, one
540 Mb. While clearing out old files from the pre-existing recycle bins on
the drives they acted very strange. They seemed to import all the contents
from the main C drive recycle bin.

I'm sure it would have made more sense to just buy a few USB thumbdrives,
but it was very nostalgic to see again all the DOS based games(Commander
Keen, Lemmings, etc.) and such stuff. They don't work so well on XP.

Just deleting the contents from the old drives took 1/2 hr for 540Mb, 45min.
for 2Gig and some files such as change.log in the restore folder in System
Volume Information could not be deleted. It claimed to be in use.

I'm wondering the description or type of an older HD that has 2 5/8" wide
connector instead of the standard 2 1/8" wide connector?
Click to expand...

If it is a single connector with 50 pins then it is almost certainly
old-style single-ended SCSI. Before that on a home-type PC about the
only style of HD would have been MFM but that standard actually required
two ribbon connections -- one for data and one for control as I vaguely
recall. If you go way back in the world of PCs, back into the 70s and
long before IBM there were a limited number of 8" and larger hard drives
used on a systems but the equivalent cost was about that of buying a new
auto today and they were rare indeed. I can't recall what the interface
was but it was seriously complicated and the controllers were about as
complex as the rest of the computer.
 
Steve P said:
Just deleting the contents from the old drives took 1/2 hr for 540Mb,
45min. for 2Gig and some files such as change.log in the restore folder in
System Volume Information could not be deleted. It claimed to be in use.
Click to expand...

If you are blanking the drive completely in DOS - just do a quick format
(/q):
Format E: /q
In windows, just format and choose quick option
Either one will takes seconds!
I'm wondering the description or type of an older HD that has 2 5/8" wide
connector instead of the standard 2 1/8" wide connector?
Click to expand...

Sounds like a SCSI drive - does the label on the top mention SCSI?
 
If you are blanking the drive completely in DOS - just do a quick format
(/q):
Format E: /q
In windows, just format and choose quick option
Either one will takes seconds!
Click to expand...
I was trying to save some of the old DOS programs - wasted effort. Should
have moved them onto C: drive and then done a format. I'm not used to
having multiple HD.

Sounds like a SCSI drive - does the label on the top mention SCSI?
Click to expand...
It is SCSI. Found on Alyon.org site. No information on drive label other
than model#. Way too old to use. I'll find a recycle dumpster.
 
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