What to do with two old legacy laCie drives ?

[michelangelo]

Hello, I purchased a while ago (around 2005) two laCie drives and stopped using then in 2011, when I purchased a MacBook Pro to replace my earlier 2001 iBook. I just tried to verify whether were (1) still usable, (2) reformattable (=> reformat and throw away), or (3) impossible to access (give up and throw away).

I tried to mount them on the mac desktop using either of the two external power devices (compatible), using either of the two computers (iBook and MacBook), using either of their available ports (early Firewire or USB), using the finder and disk utilities.

The small disk does not even receive the current and its blue light does not show any activity. It does not mount.

The bigger disk receives the current and its blue light shows activity. Nevertheless, it does not mount.

Any advice on what I should do (between [2] try to reformat to throw away and [3] give up and throw away). ? TIA

 

[Raz0rEdge]

If you have data that is important on there and want to recover it, you will likely have to go the professional route. If you don't care about the data but don't want anything else to get at it, you might want to destroy the drive physically. A lot of recycling places have a hard drive shredder that will handle that for you. Short of that, you can take a hammer to it and then discard it according to your local regulations..

 

[pm-r]

Any advice on what I should do (between [2] try to reformat to throw away and [3] give up and throw away). ? TIA

I'd say it all depends on what data is on them and what you might want to do with it or worth recovering.

You could try using a different compatible external enclosure or one of the cheaper adapters and see if they work, and they might even need a sharp whack on the side in case they may be suffering from stiction or whatever.

If they won't work for you, I doubt that anyone would bother wasting their time to access anything if you just discard them.

Or pull them apart if you don't need to data and salvage the strong magnets from inside and make decorations from the platters. All kinds of uses for both.






- Patrick
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[chscag]

I'm fairly certain if there was any data that needed to be recovered from those ancient drives, he would have done the recovery long ago. ;D

@michelangelo:

Follow Ashwin's advice and destroy the drives.

 

[michelangelo]

Thank you to all of you. Right Chscag, I do not even Know what was in there. Worthless junk probably. When I was a kid, I loved to dismantle all sorts of mechanical machines. Maybe I will open them, buy a cheap wired adaptor, look into them, try to wipe them clean and carry on dismantling, just for the fun of it.

Thanks.

 

[pm-r]

I'm fairly certain if there was any data that needed to be recovered from those ancient drives, he would have done the recovery long ago. ;D
…

Ahhh… here we go again with that assume thing poking out its head like it does with me sometimes…





- Patrick
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[chscag]

LOL, notice I said fairly certain. ;D Anyway, it appears I was right.

 

[pm-r]

LOL, notice I said fairly certain. ;D Anyway, it appears I was right.

Yup, and yes you were!!! And is a Texan ever wrong…???

But maybe just like: fairly certain = positive assumption.

Now why did the OP even post when they admit and declare "I do not even Know what was in there. Worthless junk probably." After saying "Any advice on what I should do"…hmmm… I wonder… but not much!!!

But I couldn't find the actual location of "West of Paris " where they live in Google Maps either.





- Patrick
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[chscag]

Yup, and yes you were!!! And is a Texan ever wrong…???

Nope. We may stretch the truth a bit here and there, but never wrong. Just ask us. ;P

 

[michelangelo]

[...]Now why did the OP even post when they admit and declare "I do not even Know what was in there. Worthless junk probably." After saying "Any advice on what I should do"…hmmm… I wonder… but not much!!!

Did I forget to mention that my wife keeps nagging me for my three old macs, drives and other old stuff (like a totally useless legacy Ethernet 10BaseT Hub with a beautiful metallic gray case, which can work... with a 110V/220V converter, mac SE time) which are sitting here idle, unused, visible and gathering dust... and that I positively hate throwing old stuff away unless proven to be seriously dead ? The advice received here was very welcome, useful indeed and, not entering into texan considerations, I would say chscag was quite right in his assumptions and advice.

But I couldn't find the actual location of "West of Paris " where they live in Google Maps either.

48°91' North, 1°91' East, 50 km west of Paris, within a riding distance to the well known Paris-Brest-Paris bike route.

Hope this helps to clarify. My apologies for any omission of lack of clarity of purpose (or else).

 

[michelangelo]

Hello again... I received my hard drive adapter to USB 3 this afternoon. Time to open the first drive.
FIRST DRIVE. I opened it and took its content away from the box. It contained a 250 GB Western Digital 3.5" IDE hard drive, partitioned. One partition contained installers. I saved its content to my external drive with CCC. All the rest was junk. The drive is now being reformatted anew and erased. DriveDX tells me the drive is OK, but one sector was damaged. It appears to me the outside electronics had failed. Is it worthwhile keeping it in an enclosure which I would purchase ? At first look on Amazon, all enclosures appear to be USB 2. Should I look for an USB3 ? TIA

 

[pm-r]

External enclosures for 3.5" IDE (PATA) hard drives were in very short supply the last time I checked, but I'd be surprised if that drive can even come close to saturating any USB 2.0 bus, so anything faster would probably be a waste of money if they even exist. I'd doubt it, at least for the rated speed. But I could be wrong.




- Patrick
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[michelangelo]

Thanks Patrick. I will do that. A 10 years old Firewire drive is entitled to a quiet life. Ane I will not need more speed anyway.

 

[michelangelo]

SECOND DRIVE. I opened it and took its content away from the box. It contained two 2008 500 GB Hitachi 3.5" SATA hard drives, content not recoverable. Both drives are OK according to DriveDX. I reformatted them anew. It appears to me the outside electronics had failed also, but the drives' content was not readable. I will keep them for possible reuse but will not buy individual enclosures (yet).

Conclusion: the first case contained a 2005 IDE drive in good shape. the second case contained two 2008 SATA drives in a not-so-good shape. All (3 out of 3) are re-usable nevertheless, which I did not expect at all, given that, seen from the outside, they looked dead. Both LaCie cases and associated electronics will go to the recovery junk yard.

 

[pm-r]

Both LaCie cases and associated electronics will go to the recovery junk yard.

My experiences with the later LaCie external drives, none good, were that their power supplies, especially their power bricks, often failed and God only knows what brand drives they might have used.

I am a bit surprised that no data showed to be recoverable. That seems a bit odd considering that the drivers could be spun up and mounted.