Data transfer from legacy machines without network

For old machines which aren’t networked, is it yet possible for their internal IDE HDDs to be read via USB on the BeagleBoard? Specifically, I’m considering this IDE to USB 2.0 adaptor or this one . TIA.

If the class/subclass/protocol are 8:6:80, then it ought to work. You can ask CPC and Maplin what the class/subclass/protocol are. There is a chance that it still won’t work if the disc is too old for the adaptor to understand.

Overall, I’d have thought that your chances of success are high.

If the class/subclass/protocol are 8:6:80, then it ought to work.

Tried it with my drive¹.

• From *desktop, i.e. no boot sequence:
  • After 30s the hourglass appears (mouse, kb and taskwindow working while waiting for this)
  • After a further 60s a conventional SCSI icon appears (:4)
  • Upon trying to open a directory display, after almost 60s of hourglass I get a SCSI Filer message “Target error – Hardware error”
  • The iconbar menu takes almost 60s to appear (hourglass), as above
    • Then selecting either dismount or free gives the same error (after a further 60s of hourglass)
    • Selecting verify gives the instantaneous error “Filing system or path ADFSFiler: not present”
• From my usual boot sequence (not heavily modified):
  • Similar to above except when waiting for hourglass the pointer is sluggish (woke up to hourglass when I did a click/drag on pinboard) and either the kb isn’t working (F12) or is sluggish like mouse. Other activity (i.e. BASIC loop in taskwindow) appears unaffected.

Anyway, Maplin have a money-back scheme so I can return it next week for a refund. It’s not that important to me ATM - I felt like trying it out of interest, as some people might want to do this sort of thing. If you think it’s worth me investigating anything else, I’m willing to give it a go (within the next week) but will otherwise leave it for some point in the future.

Edit: The Maplins staff² claimed I had a pin missing so I’d better now try the drive back in my RiscPC to check all still OK there! Done – RiscPC still boots from it.

[Edit: Note that the above tests were undertaken with a significantly older ROM image than is currently available.]

¹ 10yo Quantum 20GB (LM20A011 / LM20A461) from my RiscPC, formatted to RO4.

² What would they know (hoping no one here has any connections to staff there)?