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I'm trying to get data off a 2.5 inch hard drive from an old laptop (a Macintosh PowerBook Duo 230), the drive is model: WDS-2120
It looks like a standard mini-IDE hard drive, except it only has 40 pins then a break and 8 additional pins -I would guess these 8 for jumpers. Instead of the normal missing 20 pin, the missing pin is in position 17.
Any suggestion on an adapter or the name of this connector type?
digarch
Posted 2020-02-24T20:40:56.213
Reputation: 313
46
This is a PowerBook special and is not a PATA/IDE connector at all. It's a SCSI connector! Apparently a very custom SCSI connector that isn't really supported elsewhere, though it appears to be electrically (if not mechanically) compatible with standard SCSI-2 so an adapter is possible.
Some more info at: http://vintagemacmuseum.com/reading-powerbook-2-5-scsi-hard-drives/
There's some discussion over at https://68kmla.org/forums/index.php?/topic/31589-40p-scsi-to-50p-scsi/
There are also devices available that emulate such a drive (using a SD card as backing storage). Note the pinout in the photo matches your drive.
Bob
Posted 2020-02-24T20:40:56.213
Reputation: 51 526
1@Baldrickk As with many laptops, especially of that era, there probably weren't many, if any, actual standard options. I'm not entirely sure this wasn't actually a standard, either, but if it was ... it certainly wasn't particularly popular or common. – Bob – 2020-02-25T12:45:54.597
What's the difference between electrically and mechanically compatible? – Hashim – 2020-02-25T13:41:20.510
15@Hashim "Mechanically compatible" would mean that a standard SCSI-2 connector would fit the drive. "Electrically compatible" means that while a standard connector won't physically fit, an adapter could be made to connect to a SCSI-2 interface, because all of the required signals/pins are available. – Shamtam – 2020-02-25T13:49:12.887
2@Bob a standard of some type, sure. But like you say, not a common one. The other example that comes to mind is the iMac circa 2012 (I think) - the HDDs used in that are identical to "standard" SATA drives (in fact, an identical "standard" SATA drive was made by the manufacturer, which I believe was Seagate) but the apple drive had a unique temperature sensor connection instead of using SMART. "standard" drives did not have this connection, so unless you bought the apple version at a markup, no temperature would be sensed and fans would run at max speed in the normally quiet machine. – Baldrickk – 2020-02-25T15:26:04.907
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According to EveryMac the laptop you mentioned uses a SCSI connector for its internal drive connections.
Standard Hard Drive: 80 MB, 120 MB* Int. HD Interface: SCSI
Details: *By default, this model is equipped with an 80 MB or 120 MB internal SCSI hard drive.
Emphasis mine.
The 8 pins to the left of your image will probably be used to indicate the SCSI ID of the drive, normally using jumpers. The original version of SCSI could daisy-chain up to 8 devices.
Burgi
Posted 2020-02-24T20:40:56.213
Reputation: 5 916
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It's SCSI. The 8 pins on the left are for power. There are no jumper pins; SCSI auto-negotiates. You can get devices like EX Connect to hook it up to a machine.
dave
Posted 2020-02-24T20:40:56.213
Reputation: 1
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This is true for SCSI adapters after about 1998 but in 1992, when this laptop was launched, SCSI devices needed jumper settings.
– Burgi – 2020-02-26T09:57:07.937
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Does this answer your question? What is the connector on an old fashion IDE laptop called?
– BloodPhilia – 2020-02-24T20:48:48.557Not quite, the drive in that post is a 2.5" with 44 pins then a break then 4 pins for jumpers. The drive I'm working with is 2.5 inches but only has 40 pins, then a break and 8 pins (which I assume are also for jumpers) - Thanks though! – digarch – 2020-02-24T21:02:34.117
Well, unless the 8 pins are actually for delivering power, which would leave 40 pins for possibly nonstandard-shaped IDE? (I'm not sure if there's anything other, besides SCSI – which AFAIK needs more pins total.) What was the laptop's manufacturer and model? – user1686 – 2020-02-24T21:09:06.193
2macintosh powerbook duo 230 – digarch – 2020-02-24T21:15:52.950
I'm suspicious that this might fit a 50-pin connector. But that would leave it open to a myriad of proprietary ATA and some SCSI connectors... would need to try to identify one with a matching key pin. – Bob – 2020-02-24T21:16:17.943
See https://superuser.com/questions/1457529/1991-ms-dos-laptop-how-can-i-read-the-data-from-this-disk
– SPRBRN – 2020-02-24T21:17:42.6032 of the pins are for power since the standard 40 pins don't deliver power. – cybernard – 2020-02-24T21:21:08.093
1@user1686: SCSI only needs 25 pins. On a 50-pin SCSI-2 ribbon connector (non differential) all odd (or even pins) are connected to ground. In fact Apple used to use a "special" SCSI cable with 25-pin D-Sub connectors (AKA a fully wired 25-pin serial cable) on both ends to connect external devices to early Macs (using the cable/connector shield as ground). And Commodore did the same with the Amiga A520 SCSI controller. I actually made my own adapter cable (50-pin ribbon to 25-D-sub) back in the day to attach several regular SCSI drives to my A520 as external drives. The thing still works. – Tonny – 2020-02-25T09:35:32.283
@Criggie, the drive is a standard SCSI drive, yes, but the connector is not a standard SCSI connector. – Mark – 2020-02-25T23:47:35.930
1@Mark fair point - doesn't change the "lack of research effort" – Criggie – 2020-02-26T00:07:18.817
1A hard disk recovery service might get the data off at a very reasonable price, seeing as it is a working drive. – Andrew Morton – 2020-02-26T16:39:09.400