[SOLVED] What type of cable do I need to connect an internal 5.25” HDD to a USB port?

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dchen2105

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I found an old DLink storage box that my dad owns, which starts up, but can’t seem to connect to a PC or a router. I can remove the two 500gb 5.25” HDDs, but I was wondering how I would connect it to a USB port. I’ve seen a few different SATA to USB ports, but I was wondering what exact type I need. If I’m not mistaken, 2.5” and 3.5” won’t work with 5.25”, due to different power draw or something, so I need to buy a port that lists as a 2.5” 3.5” and 5.25” SATA to USB port. Are there any external power cords I need? Or will the SATA work on its own?

Thanks
 
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DSzymborski said:
Ummm...what? 3.5" drives are like a pound and a half, 5.25" drives around four pounds, etc. To find hard drives that heavy, I think you literally have to go back to IBM drives from the late 50s.
Click to expand...

From 1980-1983, we had removable platter (w/ fixed lower platter drives from HP 7900) drives with a capacity of about 2.5 MB per 12" platter, with the drive that weighed about 150 lbs, which were the size of a small college dorm room refrigerator... (not counting it's external DC power supply the size of a typicalVHS VCR of the time. As I had the pleasure of changing one of these drives on an airplane about once per month or so for three years straight, I can faithfully attest as to their size and weight :)

As 1988 arrived, we...
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mdd1963

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Post a link to the description of these exact drives in question....or to the DLink 'box' in question. Are you sure the drives are SATA, and not the 15-20+ year old PATA/IDE standard?

(I've not ever even heard of 5.25" SATA drives....; are you sure these are not 3.5" drives inside some sort of 5.25" external docking bay adapter?)

If the drives came out of some type of NAS, they would likely not be readable anyway, with many NAS units running via various proprietary Linux OS examples)
 
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dchen2105

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SkyNetRising said:
What exactly are you trying to accomplish there?
5.25" drives would not have capacity in GB. Those would be in MB. Utterly useless.
Click to expand...
It says 500GB on the sticker on each one. Don't have it with me right now, I'm not at my dads place. Maybe it is 3.5" but it seemed a little large to be that size(again, I don't have it with me). There are plenty of 5.25" drives that have large capacity: [First thing I found on ebay](https://www.ebay.ca/itm/HITACHI-2TB...451493?hash=item5da5d97925:g:DwAAAOSwbklej43m ).

I'm just trying to see if there is any data on it. I recently found some video CDs my dad made when my brother and I were very little, so I was thinking that I could find the original digital copies of those(since they were filmed on VCR cassettes, moved to digital and then burned into CDs. Some of the CDs are missing or scratched, so I figured finding the digital copies would be my best bet. Either way, I could find some files that may interest me on it.
 
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dchen2105

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mdd1963 said:
Post a link to the description of these exact drives in question....or to the DLink 'box' in question. Are you sure the drives are SATA, and not the 15-20+ year old PATA/IDE standard?

(I've not ever even heard of 5.25" SATA drives....; are you sure these are not 3.5" drives inside some sort of 5.25" external docking bay adapter?)

If the drives came out of some type of NAS, they would likely not be readable anyway, with many NAS units running via various proprietary Linux OS examples)
Click to expand...
Yes, I believe it is what you'd call a NAS(not too familiar with those). I believe they are SATA 3gb/s drives, last I checked. I don't think they're too old, but you never know what you may find on those. Certain that it is SATA II(I found a plastic external SATA 2.5" enclosure that I thought about tearing apart to fit the HDD into the enclosure). They're very clearly not in some sort of adapter case, since it's made of several pieces of solid metal, with the specs of the drive on a sticker in the front. I can see an exposed logic board attached to the SATA port and I don't see any room to fit a 3.5" hard drive inside, while letting it plug into somewhere on the logic board. I forgot what sort of OS it was running, but it does have one that stopped working for my dad(and no he's not an idiot when it comes to computers).
 
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DSzymborski

DSzymborski

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dchen2105 said:
It says 500GB on the sticker on each one. Don't have it with me right now, I'm not at my dads place. Maybe it is 3.5" but it seemed a little large to be that size(again, I don't have it with me). There are plenty of 5.25" drives that have large capacity: [First thing I found on ebay](https://www.ebay.ca/itm/HITACHI-2TB...451493?hash=item5da5d97925:g:DwAAAOSwbklej43m ).

I'm just trying to see if there is any data on it. I recently found some video CDs my dad made when my brother and I were very little, so I was thinking that I could find the original digital copies of those(since they were filmed on VCR cassettes, moved to digital and then burned into CDs. Some of the CDs are missing or scratched, so I figured finding the digital copies would be my best bet. Either way, I could find some files that may interest me on it.
Click to expand...

The problem is you're taking 5.25" far too literally. That's the size of the external bays used that still exist in some cases. Well, sort of. They're actually just stealing the name from the 5.25" floppy drives that were installed in those bays. The bay itself is 5.75" wide (the drive had to be wider than the 5.25" floppy disk).

Similarly, 3.5" hard drives are called 3.5" hard drives because they fit in the bay that would house a 3.5" floppy disk drive.

The last actual 5.25" hard drive was made in the late 90s. This is a 3.5" hard drive.

I think this is a moot point until we see the sticker and model and possibly a photo of the drive and the connectors.
 
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dchen2105

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DSzymborski said:
The problem is you're taking 5.25" far too literally. That's the size of the external bays used that still exist in some cases. Well, sort of. They're actually just stealing the name from the 5.25" floppy drives that were installed in those bays. The bay itself is 5.75" wide (the drive had to be wider than the 5.25" floppy disk).

Similarly, 3.5" hard drives are called 3.5" hard drives because they fit in the bay that would house a 3.5" floppy disk drive.

The last actual 5.25" hard drive was made in the late 90s. This is a 3.5" hard drive.

I think this is a moot point until we see the sticker and model and possibly a photo of the drive and the connectors.
Click to expand...
Ok, will check then. 3.5" is that big tho!!?!? It weighed a good 15-20lbs.
 
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DSzymborski

DSzymborski

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dchen2105 said:
Ok, will check then. 3.5" is that big tho!!?!? It weighed a good 15-20lbs.
Click to expand...

Ummm...what? 3.5" drives are like a pound and a half, 5.25" drives around four pounds, etc. To find hard drives that heavy, I think you literally have to go back to IBM drives from the late 50s.

Honestly, I think you really need to wait until you're at the drives to provide additional information because I don't think your recollections of these drives are really helping us help you.
 
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dchen2105

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DSzymborski said:
Ummm...what? 3.5" drives are like a pound and a half, 5.25" drives around four pounds, etc. To find hard drives that heavy, I think you literally have to go back to IBM drives from the late 50s.

Honestly, I think you really need to wait until you're at the drives to provide additional information because I don't think your recollections of these drives are really helping us help you.
Click to expand...
Was an exaggeration, but yeah it weighed about as much as the keyboard Im writing on
 
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mdd1963

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DSzymborski said:
Ummm...what? 3.5" drives are like a pound and a half, 5.25" drives around four pounds, etc. To find hard drives that heavy, I think you literally have to go back to IBM drives from the late 50s.
Click to expand...

From 1980-1983, we had removable platter (w/ fixed lower platter drives from HP 7900) drives with a capacity of about 2.5 MB per 12" platter, with the drive that weighed about 150 lbs, which were the size of a small college dorm room refrigerator... (not counting it's external DC power supply the size of a typicalVHS VCR of the time. As I had the pleasure of changing one of these drives on an airplane about once per month or so for three years straight, I can faithfully attest as to their size and weight :)

As 1988 arrived, we marveled at the 20 MB/removable platter drives about the size of a small VCR of the era...

The good ole days!
 
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