Intro
This is another episode in salvaging parts of an old PC. In this case it is the hard drives and floppy disk drives that are of interest. These devices are of great interest because the media may contain valuable information. In my case I am looking for old pictures that might be stored on these old disk drives.
The Video
SATA to USB adapters cost about $16 . Floppy drive to USB adapters cost about $10.
Discussion
I was pleasantly surprised to find a cache of old photos on the hard drive in the video. It is funny how the content that was on this drive had slipped from my mind. This reuse and upscaling project is paying some great and unexpected dividends.
These adapters are pretty much plug-and-play although they generally will need an external power supply. The floppy disk interface is a bit tricky, but the salvaged power harness from the PC came in handy to be used with a PC supply that was converted to a bench supply. I found the exercise interesting and it will extend the usefulness of these drives. The trip down memory lane brings some unexpected enjoyment - even the buzzing and ticking sounds of the floppy drive brought a nostalgic smile to my face. The floppy interface will come in handy if and when I get the urge to see what interesting content I may have stored on my stash of floppy disks. I did find some old games, which refuse to run on my modern PC, but I am more interested in old project documents, old pictures and articles I wrote. For me, the investment in some low-cost adapters has been well worthwhile.
