Recover OLD hdd Quantum AT52/LP

[livetheenergy]

Hello, someone known how to read a very old hdd (50mb) Quantum AT52/LP (maybe this is a CHS drive, not LBA) ?

This can work on a standard ide channel on modern motherboard?
Windows XP can see this drive?

Thank you in advance!

G

[seed.helper]

my quantums of 270mb could be seen on xp and used normaly ( 251 MB after format available lol)

[livetheenergy]

Is possible to mount it on a modern motherboard?

Thank you
G

[dick]

Hi! What do you want to do? Fix it or transfer data?
For data transfer just connect it by usb.

[livetheenergy]

i have tried to connect with usb bridge, but nothing happen...
if plugged on pc3000 i can see the passport, but i can't recover it because this isn't a lba disk.

any ideas?

[dick]

Ok I understand now. Probably the drive won't auto detect.
I would find an older pc or motherboard with 30 pin ide connectors and try that. It might be you have to go into the bios and select CHS and enter the drive parameters manually (not using auto default).
It's been so long now I can hardly remember how we used to do it!

[pcimage]

It's been a long time, but I think last time I had to recover a CHS drive I used MHDD and the "TOF" command on a real old mainboard (i486 it may have been) to image the drive to a file on a larger HDD.

[livetheenergy]

The situation is very strange, this disk seems to have an optic reader to see the position of the head stack (i have cleaned it).
With a normal spin-up of the drive, the heads go fast in the middle of the disk and then suddenly go fastest to the external side of the platter, without any initialization of the drive.
To obtain an initialization when it spin-up, i must block the head stack for 1-2 seconds and then the heads go to a middle position on the disk, then they go slowly on the external side and then it is visible on pc3000 and also in the bios (if i plug it on any machine with std ide cabble), but if i want read some data (for example with windows 98 boot disk) the heads try to move some times then the drive go to spin-down and again spin-up.
I can not get a clear view of this situation...I think I'm missing something

[Cris]

this disk seems to have an optic reader to see the position of the head stack

Tonight I was reading some old documentation and noticed this:

Code:

TRACK ZERO DETECTOR
    An obsolete technology that RECALIBRATES by sensing when infrared
    beams between a LED and infrared sensitive photo-transistor are
    blocked by the track zero interrupter (TZI).

RECALIBRATE
    Return to Track Zero.  A common disc drive function in which the
    heads are returned to track 0 (outermost track).


[livetheenergy]

interesting... how to use this information?

thanks to everyone

[Cris]

interesting... how to use this information?

Not sure if the information is useful, I just thought it was interesting.

I have not used CHS based drives for years so cannot really help, but I have seen people mention that some old software "RecoverSoft Media Tools Professional" supports CHS mode if that helps.

Also, you could probably find an old service manual for the drive, that might have some useful information.

[livetheenergy]

http://youtu.be/Z8pewc9cF2c

This is a video with focus on the known issue.

any idea?

Thanks to everyone

[livetheenergy]

Someone has any intuition to read this drive?