What to do with 160GB IDE

[zyzz]

I have an old IDE 160GB and I am not sure what to do with it. Doesn't look like new motherboards come with IDE connections anymore. Mine only has one and it's 5+ years old.

Is it worth making this an external? If so can someone recommend me a good enclosure for it thanks.

 

[RetiredChief]

Here is one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817145132
Didn't see any USB3 enclosues
For others (includes a couple that have usb/1394, But the 1394 (firewire seems to be dieing out also:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007705%20600006254%20600006268&IsNodeId=1&name=IDE

 

[unksol]

only USB 3 to IDE I am aware of.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817270038

Frankly. you can buy a bigger SATA drive for that price though. I'd just put it in my parts box and wait for the next old broken PC to come my way, but your situation may be different

 

[zyzz]

really you can buy a bigger SATA driver and it's enclosure for $50?

maybe I will just put this IDE in this computer for when I sell it.

 

[jaguarskx]

I would just destroy it.

I tend to swap out hard drives every 5 years. They may last longer than that, in fact I used a old IBM Deskstar 40GB hard drive for almost 10 years, but I rather swap in a new hard drive while I know the old one is still working.

To prevent anyone from trying to recover any data on the drive after using a program like KillDisk 4 or 5 times to wipe the data, I physically destroy the hard drive. If I had a gun and did not live in a major metropolitan city I would use old hard drives for target practice.

 

[zyzz]

I don't think any data is recoverable. It's been reformatted twice.

Also I don't have a gun LOL.

 

[jaguarskx]

Data can still be recovered after only two reformats. Reformatting doesn't really erase any data, it just erases the data in the partition table which identifies where the data chunks of files are located on the hard disk. Basically speaking, if you install BF 3 on a hard drive and then format, the BF3 files are still on the hard drive, but the partition table which tells Windows where the BF3 files are located has been erased.

Programs like KillDisk will write 1s and 0s in each sector of the hard drive. Doing this a few times will effectively destroy any traces of BF3 being on the hard drive.

 

[elbert]

Building my new PC I ran into the same problem. I done a lot of searching and found the rosewill RC-212 VIA PCI SATA 1.5G / IDE ATA 133 Controller Card. The big advantage this card has is its on card bios which allows for booting the PATA drives with a diskette or CD boot strap.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132009

I wouldn't suggest an external enclosure with this drive. With the size and cost of the external enclosure you would be better off purchasing a new 2.5 inch seagate go flex or the WD USB drive.

 

[zyzz]

Good info thanks. Never heard of one of those cards before elbert.

Also jaguarskx, is KillDisk similar to DBAN? Never used either program, but I thought you would only use these programs after only 1 reformat if your computer was bloated.