How(?) to force old PIO HDD into DMA mode...

[marshallstax]

Is there any way to make an old (1994 era) Conner CFS420A hard drive
work with a USB to SATA/IDE adapter?

When I hook up the CFS420A to the adapter it spins up OK and is
recognised by name in the Device Manager (running Vista Home Premium)
but is not given a drive letter. From what I've read online it seems
the problem is that the old HDD is in PIO mode and therefore isn't
"seen" by the adapter I'm trying to use.

I want to be able to access files on the CFS420A using my laptop, but
it seems impossible unless I can get the drive to go to DMA mode, if
that's even possible.

Any ideas? Helpful ideas!

 

[Paul]

Is there any way to make an old (1994 era) Conner CFS420A hard drive
work with a USB to SATA/IDE adapter?

When I hook up the CFS420A to the adapter it spins up OK and is
recognised by name in the Device Manager (running Vista Home Premium)
but is not given a drive letter. From what I've read online it seems
the problem is that the old HDD is in PIO mode and therefore isn't
"seen" by the adapter I'm trying to use.

I want to be able to access files on the CFS420A using my laptop, but
it seems impossible unless I can get the drive to go to DMA mode, if
that's even possible.

Any ideas? Helpful ideas!

Can you connect the drive to another computer, like a desktop,
using a 44 pin to 40 pin adapter ? Then, network from the desktop
to the laptop ? Maybe you can get the files that way, because
the IDE interface on a desktop motherboard is more likely to support a
wider range of standards.

There is an example of an adapter here. With this one, you have to
cut a pin off the 40 pin side yourself, as most desktop cables
will have the keying pin blocked. I think I have one cable here,
that has that pin unblocked, so if I could find that cable again,
and I bought one of these, I could use it without modification.
The purchasers here, have been cutting the extra pin off.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119245

(Keying pin mentioned here.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment

(You can see the blocked pin on the connectors here.)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Nappe.svg

There is another one on Newegg, but it is described as fragile.
And yet another that is too expensive for what you're getting.

Paul

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Is there any way to make an old (1994 era) Conner CFS420A hard drive
work with a USB to SATA/IDE adapter?

When I hook up the CFS420A to the adapter it spins up OK and is
recognised by name in the Device Manager (running Vista Home Premium)
but is not given a drive letter. From what I've read online it seems
the problem is that the old HDD is in PIO mode and therefore isn't
"seen" by the adapter I'm trying to use.

I want to be able to access files on the CFS420A using my laptop, but
it seems impossible unless I can get the drive to go to DMA mode, if
that's even possible.

Any ideas? Helpful ideas!

This specs page states that your drive supports "EISA Type B" DMA
mode:
http://www.codemicro.com/support/disc/specs/ata/cfs420a.html

Could it be that the CHS geometry reported by the drive via the ATA
Identify Drive command differs from its translated geometry? Here is
one example, although the drive in this case is a 40MB Conner:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage/msg/cfc5d101fb934a4f?dmode=source

Notice that the drive reports a CHS geometry of 1053/2/40 but has
actually been formatted using a translated geometry of 4 heads and 26
sectors (and 810 cylinders?).

In your case, if the drive has been partitioned and formatted with a
translated CHS geometry of 826 cyl, 16 heads, and 63 sectors, and if
the controller in the USB enclosure is detecting some other CHS
geometry, then it will see the physical drive but may not be able to
find its logical volumes.

What I would do is to dump the contents of physical sector 0 using a
disk editor (eg MBRtool). You will then see the translated CHS values
in the partition table. I would also extract the Identify Drive data
and compare the two CHS sets. For the latter, I use this old DOS based
Seagate utility:

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/IDE-identify/FIND-ATA.EXE

This requires that your drive be connected to an IDE port.

- Franc Zabkar