So my friend's bro says he has some leftover BTC on an ancient HDD. He says it could be like 0.3 BTC or something. When I saw the HDD, it looked super strange with a weird connection. He claimed he tried finding the right cable, but no luck. I got a few PCs, but none fit this thing.
Sounds like an IDE cable to me. They’re pretty common but most PCs made in the last 15 years don’t support them directly anymore. You might need an IDE adapter card if your mobo doesn't have one.
What you've got is probably a standard PATA/IDE drive from back in the day. If your motherboard can't connect to it, just grab a cheap IDE to USB adapter online or at a local shop. But honestly, if you’ve never seen one of these before, you might wanna get someone who knows what they’re doing.
Nah, I think you're being too harsh. Just because they don’t know the connector names doesn’t mean they’re clueless. It’s just a hard drive, nothing crazy. And honestly, I forgot the name of IDE drives too until seeing this thread. Getting help should be fine as long as it's someone trustworthy.
You can find those IDE adapters for around 12 bucks on Aliexpress. But like, how did your friend leave something so important in such bad condition? 0.3 BTC might be lost forever if the files got corrupted.
Seriously, you gotta be careful here. If you don’t know how to handle these drives, you could totally wreck the data. Not knowing the interface is a huge red flag. How will you safely image the thing if you can’t even identify it?
Modern motherboards really don’t have IDE slots anymore, so yeah, use that adapter or an enclosure. Just make sure to get one with a power supply because a lot of them don’t include it. You’ll need the power to run that old drive.
Agreed. OP needs to be super careful. If they’re thinking about letting someone else handle it, that’s a risky move. Don’t hand over the HDD to just anyone. You might end up losing access to the wallet.
I found a good IDE to USB adapter that works fine for my old drives. OP should definitely look for something like that. Just make sure it’s one that has a power supply included.
Yeah, you don’t want an enclosure without power. I learned that the hard way. Got one once without a power brick and had to scramble to find a compatible one.
I think it's doable. If OP handles it carefully, they should be able to connect that HDD without issues. Just stick with advice from the tech-savvy people here.
I still have an old Pentium 4 PC that uses the same cable. Where are you from, OP? I could send you one, but honestly, you’d still need an old PC to use it.
That’s definitely an older IDE connector. They were common before SATA became the norm. Just make sure it’s got both power and data cables before trying to connect it.
From what I see, that interface is clearly outdated. It’s not super weird, just vintage tech. If you can’t find it locally, just order that adapter online.
If the fuse is blown, the HDD might not spin anymore. That fuse protects the drive, but it could be tricky to fix. You’ll probably need a multimeter to check it out.
The fuse is on the PCB, right? I know the cables well. Got a desktop that uses IDE too, but some parts are probably shot since it hasn’t been used in ages.