Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let\u2019s get started!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who doesn\u2019t have a few hard drives from previous computers laying around? Not my family anyway. The first one I dealt with is a Quantum Fireball KX with my father\u2019s name written on it. More importantly: it uses a legacy PATA connection for data, and with the transition away from SATA to M.2 well underway, the time for preservation is now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My early attempts revolved around a PCI card for a PATA adapter. Long story short: I was never able to boot with the Fireball hooked into my system. I tried different combinations on the jumper pins along with position on the cable. I was never able to access the BIOS. All I got was a freeze mid-power-on-beep or a failed attempt to boot to the hard disk after hearing it spinning up. I verified the card and cable by testing them with CD\/DVD reader\/burners also from the PATA era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aware that the Fireball might be burned out, we ordered a multi-adapter so I could connect it over USB \u2013 without having to fight for the BIOS. It mounted right up. I used rsync to dump the contents to GoldenOakLibry, my family\u2019s network storage. Along the way, I came across devhints.io<\/a> [1]. It looks like an amazing resource. It helped me out wrangling rsync quickly. It has one of the highly exclusive places in my bookmarks list. My only complaint is how interesting Mr. Cruz made his site to cite. Most importantly, I wrote out a sticky note about when and where I dumped the drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The second drive (branded Deskstar, SATA connector) took way too long. I was the fool for putting it over Wi-Fi, and I paid for it. Several times, rsync would appear to stall as it got to a larger file. A couple such times, I figured the drive was overheating due to no circulation so I stopped rsync, powered it off, and let it cool down. The breakthrough was pulling up a utility to show my network data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a rather important incident I feel inclined to report before wrapping up. At one point, I accidentally caught a cord connected to the adapter. The drive tumbled off my desk, but I barely managed to catch it after a fumble or two. My worst fear was that of a \u201chead crash,\u201d where the read-write head contacts the spinning platter, leaving a scratch and destroying the data on it. If anything, the slow Wi-Fi speed worked in my favor, because the head was off where it won\u2019t do any harm during an impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Data preservation is a chore. In retrospect, I should have performed this procedure exclusively over a wired connection \u2013 I should have investigated the possibility of mounting it to GoldenOakLibry directly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kinds of \u201cdigital chores\u201d turned out more memorable than you\u2019d have cared for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I look forward hearing your answers on in the comments below or on my Discord server<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1] R. Cruz \u201cRsync cheatsheet\u201ddevhints.io<\/em>, [Online]. Available:https:\/\/devhints.io\/rsync<\/a> [Accessed: Aug 22, 2022].<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Good Morning from my Robotics Lab! This is Shadow_8472 with a side project of the week. Let\u2019s get started! Who doesn\u2019t have a few hard drives from previous computers laying around? Not my family anyway. The first one I dealt with is a Quantum Fireball KX with my father\u2019s name written on it. More importantly: … <\/p>\nTakeaway<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Final Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Work Cited<\/h2>\n\n\n\n