Can't initialize 15+ year old hard drive

[Random0541]

Upon moving late last year, I stumbled upon 2 of our old hard drives packed away (not in attic). These are 15+ years old and only one has any information on it (80GB). Anyways fast forward to now I bought a Sabrent IDE to usb (with molex for power) to use to transfer the storage from the old hard drives to my current computer. I hooked one of them up (the one with no information on it) and waited....and waited....and waited. About 25 minutes later Disk 1 finally popps up on my Disk management tray, however it is 'Not initialized'. Tried to initialize as GPT but received the message, "The specified disk in not convertible because the size is less than the minimum size required for GPT disks." I then tried to initialize it as a MBR but it times out, "The semaphore timeout period has expired."

I really don't know what to do from this point onwards.

Hoping Tom's community can pull through for me once again!

Thanks

Possible useful information:
CPU - i7 6700K
OS - Windows 10 Pro 64 bit
Sabrent link - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DQJME7Y/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[vrumor]

They are 15 years old. If you dont need info off of them, throw them away. If you do, take it to someone who can recover the data for you, if you cant yourself. There is no benefit to using them.

 

[USAFRet]

I've used one of those USB connectors with good results.
If the drive is acting like that, it might just be dead.
15+ years, and several years just sitting....it may well be just dead.

Sounds like fridge magnet donors to me.

 

[Karadjgne]

Many of those old drives had rubber belts to spin the drives from the motor. If those drives are 15 years old, chances are good the drive belts are shot, so they could be toast