this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Help imaging a IDE drive (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 7 months ago by bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works to c/retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
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I am imaging this drive just in case it dies (from a 2000 gateway laptop I'm setting up for old games). it's a 2.5" IDE Toshiba drive. It works just fine, has Win 2k on it. I have tried 2 different IDE to usb adapters, and both have powered up the drive, but neither have shown anything in fdisk (on linux). No weird noises or bad clicking from the drive.

I do notice that the drive does not have any jumpers on it - so I didn't think I'd need to put a jumper on master (if it has that, i need to look closer) but I figured it would already have the jumper on master if it was the only drive in the laptop right?

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[–] bridgeenjoyer@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

The laptop is too old to read a usb device like that without drivers

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

OK something that old surely has a serial port on it? If so, look in to "sneakernet" (it's a technique, not a product) to connect to another computer. I've even done networking over a serial port with linux, but there also used to be software just for copying files. That wouldn't give you a drive image but it would at least back up the software.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That hard drive is probably multiple gigabytes, it would take days to weeks to transfer that over a serial port. If the computer has a PC card slot, I would look for an ethernet adapter that would work with it.

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 0 points 7 months ago

Heh I managed to jump directly from best-case to worst-case, but hey, that still leaves everything in between as options. :-)

Yeah, speed is everything and there are pcmcia ethernet cards for $10 or less on ebay if OP has that option.

[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Boot a clonezilla or Linux CD, don't use your windows install. It should have proper USB support as long as you actually have USB ports.

[–] Chronographs@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Could also try just a flash drive, I imagine whatever drive in there is pretty small. What ide adapters do you have anyways