Laptop Spinners

[Jeff Gaines]

Decided I should have a look at half a dozen old laptop spinners I have in
a box. 1 x 250GB, 4 x 500 GB and one with a connector that my ATA
converter doesn't fit, did laptops have custom connectors?

I have cleaned them off (except the odd one), I suspect the space is more
valuable to me than the drives?

[Theo]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Decided I should have a look at half a dozen old laptop spinners I have in
a box. 1 x 250GB, 4 x 500 GB and one with a connector that my ATA
converter doesn't fit, did laptops have custom connectors?

Not for SATA. Could be SAS? Or if it has pins could be PATA.

(there were some early PATA SSDs with custom pinouts, but not HDD AFAIK)

Post by Jeff Gaines
I have cleaned them off (except the odd one), I suspect the space is more
valuable to me than the drives?

The only use I can think for those sizes is if you mess with PCs and want a
selection of swappable boot drives (eg plug in a Windows 7 boot disc).
Otherwise a 50 quid SSD or USB stick will be quicker and lower power.

Suppose you could put them in some kind of RAID using a pile of USB adapters
or some old server, but unless you want to learn about NAS things I can't
see why you'd bother.

IOW it doesn't sound useful unless you specifically need something of that
nature, or you have all the necessary bits to build something for free.

Perhaps taking them apart and stealing the magnets is more useful?

Theo

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Theo
Perhaps taking them apart and stealing the magnets is more useful?

So sad for something that not really that old (compared to me)!

[Abandoned Trolley]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Decided I should have a look at half a dozen old laptop spinners I have
in a box. 1 x 250GB, 4 x 500 GB and one with a connector that my ATA
converter doesn't fit, did laptops have custom connectors?
I have cleaned them off (except the odd one), I suspect the space is
more valuable to me than the drives?

Theres some sort of PATA "standard" which uses a a 42 pin (actually 41,
coz one is blanked off) ribbon cable connector, but the pins are at a
reduced pitch, so the connector is smaller than the normal 40 way ribbon
cable

Some while ago I bought something like this :
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728

Is that what you mean by "ATA converter" ?

[Jeff Gaines]

Post by Abandoned Trolley

Post by Jeff Gaines
Decided I should have a look at half a dozen old laptop spinners I have
in a box. 1 x 250GB, 4 x 500 GB and one with a connector that my ATA
converter doesn't fit, did laptops have custom connectors?
I have cleaned them off (except the odd one), I suspect the space is more
valuable to me than the drives?

Theres some sort of PATA "standard" which uses a a 42 pin (actually 41,
coz one is blanked off) ribbon cable connector, but the pins are at a
reduced pitch, so the connector is smaller than the normal 40 way ribbon
cable
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111731869728
Is that what you mean by "ATA converter" ?

Yes, thank you :-)

Mine has 2 "full size" connectors, one with one hole blanked and the other
not. It doesn't have the smaller pitch/size connector. I have dumped the
drive after carrying out a physical DBAN with a couple of pairs of pliers!

[Abandoned Trolley]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Mine has 2 "full size" connectors, one with one hole blanked and the
other not. It doesn't have the smaller pitch/size connector. I have
dumped the drive after carrying out a physical DBAN with a couple of
pairs of pliers!

:-\

[Abandoned Trolley]

Post by Jeff Gaines
Mine has 2 "full size" connectors, one with one hole blanked and the
other not. It doesn't have the smaller pitch/size connector. I have
dumped the drive after carrying out a physical DBAN with a couple of
pairs of pliers!

:-\

p.s. I obviously meant 44 pin (eyro)