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Trying to view old HDDs on new(ish) desktop – can’t get them to mount

Tags: Hardware, Operating Systems

Hi all,

I’m trying to get rid of loads of old hard drives (man cave clearout) and while some of the old drives work, Windows 11 refuses to mount/access some of them.

Most of them are old SATA drives I just want to check/empty – and then throw away (after driling them out). I also have some very old IDE drives I want to do the same to – and I bought this little device for the IDE ones (and it works well for some of the IDE drives): https://tinyurl.com/5xdefc2c

However, for some of them (quite a lot), Windows refuses to access the drive through the Disk Management console.

On opening Disk Manager, it asks to initialise (and choose between GTP or MBR) and whichever I choose (GPT or MBR) it comes back with the same message:

“A device which does not exist was specified”

This is the same whether I add them via a SATA cable to the mboard, or try to read them via a 3.5 disk device reader which connects via USB.

Googling for answers seems to come back to a corrupt MBR sector – but of the 20 or 30 x 3.5 hdds and 5 x 2.5 hdds – half of them work, and half of them don’t.
That would seem to me to be a really high failure rate for so many drives.

And the ones that won’t initialise don’t seem to have motor or seek head issues – no dreaded clicking that heralds the EOL of a drive.

Screenshot 1: https://tinyurl.com/y2ttwjn6
Screenshot 2: https://tinyurl.com/mv5s9v49

The desktop I’m using is an HP EliteDesk 800 G3 SFF, OS Win11 64 bit latest May ’23.

So – any thoughts? Any help would be very gratefully received!
Many thanks in advance.

Topic

These are hit or miss adapters.

In reply to Trying to view old HDDs on new(ish) desktop – can’t get them to mount

Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Since I am not the maker I won’t dive into why. Ask the maker.

Moving on to what I do with old IDE drives. I put them into external USB cases and try to access them there. My best luck is with Linux as Windows is far too picky about drive partitions and formatting.

About Linux. I don’t have to install or learn Linux. I have been using Linux without diving too deep for decades. TODAY I just keep a few USB sticks handy with bootable Linux on them to sniff out machine and other problems.

As to the adapter, good luck with the maker. IDE HDDs are usually old, small and slow. I find it best to get the data out then repurpose them into USB drives. But even that is a bad idea since many were so small. I mean my last USB 3.0 Memory Stick was 32GB and about 10 dollars. The case for the IDE drive was more than that!

Reply To: Trying to view old HDDs on new(ish) desktop – can’t get them to mount

In reply to These are hit or miss adapters.

Many thanks for the tips, I’ll try and boot the PC from an Ubuntu stick – and see if it’s less picky.
Is Ubuntu the best option? Or another Linux build?

Cheers!

On my desk I have 3 sticks.

In reply to Reply To: Trying to view old HDDs on new(ish) desktop – can’t get them to mount

Ubuntu, TAILS (it’s not for this use) and I think Puppy.

Try the Ubuntu, MX or Mint. I doubt you’ll find much difference.

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