How to copy data off an old IDE disk

Andy Armstrong andy at hexten.net
Wed Mar 26 18:57:17 GMT 2008


On 26 Mar 2008, at 18:44, Andy Wardley wrote:
> I've got a couple of old (early 90's) IDE disks that I'd like to  
> copy the data
> off.  All the data is intact and I can boot off the old master disk  
> and run
> all the DOS programs on the disk just fine.  Problem is that I can't  
> get it to
> work as a slave hanging off my Ubuntu master disk.
>
> I've got the master/slave jumpers set up OK and both disks are being
> recognised as the appropriate master and slave.  But the system  
> slows to a
> painstaking crawl and eventually just hangs 30 seconds or so into  
> the Ubuntu
> boot screen.
>
> I tried booting into recovery mode and based on the log messages  
> thrown up it
> appears that the disk interface is being crippled by the archaic  
> disk hanging
> off it that insists on talking in some INT13 based, smoke-signal  
> protocol
> running no faster than 7 ponies per minute.
>
> Alas I've only got the one machine at hand with an IDE interface so  
> I'm
> limited to what I can try at the moment.  Does anyone know if it's  
> even
> possible to run a pre-ATA IDE disk on the same cable as a modern  
> UDMA disk?
>
> The fact that it gets as far as booting suggests that it's  
> tantalisingly
> close to working.


Can you boot from an Ubuntu live CD with the drive as master? Does the  
machine have two IDE channels? Can you hook the drive up as master on  
the 2nd i/f?

Drives used to be funny about playing nicely as slaves back in the day  
- and I can't imagine that compatibility will be better with one new,  
one old.

-- 
Andy Armstrong, Hexten






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