I have one water damaged laptop and a few old computer towers (dating back to the early 1990s), from which I want to recover information from, so I can then take the computers to the recyclers.
I have been told that buying a USB to IDE/SATA adaptor would be the best option.
Does anyone have any experience with where the best place to get one of these are?
If they're SATA based drives, you can probably just save yourself the money by opening up your current tower and plugging the HDDs directly into your SATA ports.
If they're IDE based drives and you have an older computer, i.e. like an LGA775 or prior computer, then you can just open it up and do the same thing, using the IDE port. If your computer is a newer one, then it might not have an IDE port.
Doesn't hurt to check, you might be able to save yourself a bit of money.
i'm pretty sure they didn't have sata in the "early 1990s" :)
i remember having a hdd with a whopping 40MB capacity back then
We only have laptops running now though
depends on the type of hdd. if they are really old (pre-ide big old clunkers) you will also need a compatible hdd controller. usb won't work.
The oldest Harddrive is inside a computer which at one point had Windows 3.1 installed.
your first step should be to determine the type of computers you have and the types of hdds you have in each one (brand, model numbers, type of connector).
for very old computers you might need to buy a similar old computer and plug the hdd in. for ide and later hdds you should be able to use usb adapters
You can buy all in one readers on ebay, have both IDE mini 2.5" and 3.5" adapters and a sata lead can be plugged into that adapter to read Sata, all SATA whether 2.5 or 3.5 use a common power and data adapter, if the drives are readable you will be able to read them on both Linux and Windows, if the platen or logic board are damaged you then have to assess whether further investment is worthwhile, damage may be recovered if the platen has corruption or is failing, if the programs that come with your OS cannot recover the drive you may want to mount the drives in a machine "normally" and purchase "Spinrite" a program coded by Steve Gibson from Gibson research.
Vantec IDE ~ USB 2.0 adapter
http://www.mwave.com.au/product/vantec-cbisatau2-sata-ide-to…
Vantec IDE ~ USB 3.0 adapter
http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&p…
Another one from Jaycar. Not sure of brand but it looks more portable than others.
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4833