[conspire] Tempus fugit: PATA is ...

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Michael Paoli (Michael.Paoli at cal.berkeley.edu):

> However, wouldn't surprise me that the enclosures with built-in
> adapter are (almost?) entirely SATA now - figure those sales are
> generally for folks planning a semi-permanent installation, and
> likely mostly follows more current drives. 

Yeah, this is the sudden near-total absence from the shelves that I was
commenting on.

Robert showed up with what he said was a dead mini-tower with some quite
old Ubuntu release on its hard drive.  He wanted to know if he could
recover his files from the hard drive:  Naturally, like a depressingly
high number of desktop users, he'd made no provision for backup
whatsoever.  So, there he was sitting in my garage with his dead
machine, wanting advice on that and also on where to purchase a
Linux-preloaded replacement box.

I correctly guessed (without cracking his case) that the drive was PATA.
His description of the system failure sounded like some critical
component on or attached to the motherboard, so it seemed 90% likely that
his files were still there.  But I asked him (among other things):  PATA
or SATA?  And he didn't know.  Unfortunately, Robert was kind of
starting from zero with knowledge of his own system.  More frustratingly
by far, he also gave repeated (if polite) feedback suggesting that he
didn't wish to learn, either.

On his second CABAL visit, Robert brought the drive itself, that a PC
clone shop had removed from the dead mini-tower and tried to mount on a
bench machine's PATA chain, allegedly using some Linux filesystem
drivers for MS-Windows.  The tech hadn't charged Robert for this effort,
because he hadn't succeeded in copying off the contents, and told some
incoherent and implausible story about how 'file permissions' had
prevented him from copying the hard drive contents.  The tech reported
having seen directory contents, and that it was ext4.

I was pondering hauling down my ancient PII-based VA Research StartX MP 
workstation tower from my garage cabinets, but advised Robert that I'd
jumper his drive suitably and add it to a PATA chain on the StartX MP,
and then would need to boot Knoppix or some similar live CD on the
workstation, because I greatly doubted the ancient installed Debian
system could mount ext4.  And then we would be able to copy his files
off to, say, a DVD-R or a USB flash drive.

I was on the edge of offering this, but, frankly, Robert's polite but
consistent refusal to engage with the process and _learn_ put me off.
Moreover, I pointed out, it would be really rather a good idea for
Robert to have his PATA drive mounted in an external drive enclosure
that is PATA compatible and has external USB ports.  I said Robert could
just drive to Fry's Palo Alto, only a few miles, and get one.  Robert
countered that he wouldn't know what to buy -- and reiterated this after
we told him exactly what he'd need.

At this point, Les Faby generously offered to accompany Robert to Fry's
and ensure that he bought the correct item.  And Robert (politely)
refused the help, because he wanted to outsource the problem to a PC
clone shop, instead of doing it himself.

Faced with that, all we-collectively could think of to say was 'Good
luck', and to mention that Central Computer was an excellent place for 
components.  (Robert claims I recommended it as a place for assembled
whitebox PCs, but he misremembers.  I specifically _disclaimed_ any such
knowledge, as I have never used Central Computer for such services, only
as an excellent vendor of components.)

Anyway, I am happy that Robert found a stunningly good business-grade
2014 tower to take the place of his dead one.  


> I.e. for folks with 10+ year old drives, how many are going to want to
> put 'em in external enclosure and use them a long time like that?

True, it's unlikely that Robert would get _much_ use out of his $30
PATA/USB external enclosure.  It's likely that he really just needs a
one-time suck-down of his files.  

On the spur of the moment in my garage, I was driven to suggest that
anyway for a couple of reasons:  (1) Robert starting to engage with the
technology for a change would be A Good Thing for him.  (2) I feared
that if we went to a lot of trouble to do a one-time suck-down of his
files, he'd find some reason to come back and want us to do more with
the contents of his old hard drive, e.g., 'Are you sure you got
everything?'  If he had ongoing access to his ext4 partition, that would
become his problem, not ours.  (3) If he shopped wisely, I figured he
could find an enclosure with _both_ PATA and SATA connectors on the
inside,  Newegg has dozens of models of those, e.g.
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA85V3CK2576 .
(4) The suspicion in the back of my mind that Robert might actually 
not have any files on the hard drive he cares about, but simply didn't
know, exactly the same way he didn't know anything else about his
system, and I'd be bringly down my antique StartX MP, adding his hard
drive, booting a Knoppix DVD, and imaging off his files for no ultimate
benefit except satisfying Robert's curiosity.  Given that possibility,
I'd rather he spend $30 at Fry's than that I spend a lot of time on a
possible wild goose chase.