Strange old looking HDD with BTc

[dkbit98]

You could probably find some cheap USB to SATA/IDE Adapter to connect this old drive to your new computer.
But you should be ready for much slower speeds compared to modern SSD drives, and I am not sure you could boot from that drive without tweaking something in bios settings.

[moneystery]

As people have said, you can get an adapter for it and then check whether it works or not. However, since this is old technology, you need to make sure that you treat it properly, or else you might end up damaging the device. I don't recommend taking it to someone else either, you can ask AI for help and do some research, it's not that difficult I think, compared to entrusting it to someone else where they can find out what's inside and you might lose the Bitcoins you claimed.

[OgNasty]

This thread makes me feel incredibly old. Not just because apparently IDE cables are something that people today don’t even recognize, but I actually have the exact same style hard drive with a burnt fuse that also holds ~0.4 BTC on it. A strange coincidence I guess. One of these days I should fix mine too.

I'm guessing that when a HDD ended up with a burnt fuse the disk won't spin anymore or it won't receive power, that fuse must have blew to protect the drive I bet, what were you doing before that event took place?

It might not be that easy to get it fixed if it's a shorted related outcome, like you breached components together? Hope you understand what I am trying to say, I have 10s of HDD with, some are dead and I have experience with HDD very well.

You will need multimeter to figure out which diodes are dead, this is the very first thing to look out for, avoid going for the fuse as if nothing happened,fuse don't just blew up for no reason on HDDs.

Hope you are good with soldering iron too, good luck

Well, it was back around 2012-2014 I think. I had just received a shipment of ASIC miners and was using every bit of power I could find as minutes were crucial at that point in time (for a very short period, maybe a week, I think I had the highest hashrate of any individual in the world). I connected an ASIC to a power supply that was operating a computer as it had enough spare power to power it. Unfortunately miners back then aren’t what they are now and it caused a bit of an explosion that took out my hard drive. I’ll probably bring it into a shop at some point, but for now I like to pretend that the wallet is a gold mine holding far more BTC than I actually think. It is more fun that way.

[DaveF]

You have not used old PCs unless you had to run a DOS debug  [ -g=c800:5  ] to low level format one of these:





Or ran your own momentary push switch out of the back of your XT to reset it instead of flipping the power switch.

-Dave

[Vvang]

Update.

Unfortunately I was unable to revive this piece of shit, I did all I could but it seems the disk has damaged or something, I took my time to get my hands on three different HDD extensions with IDE cable space.

It's like the disk in the drive is stuck or maybe damaged, it's not my first time using one and while comparing them the working one spins more than this one, this one with BTC feels sluggish.

I am guessing it fell or dropped, I am fed up and I don't know what else to do, I think it's time I quit trying, thanks for all your replies, I doubt at this point that there is something left that I can do.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Technically there is one option left: send it to a hdd recovery service who can open it up in a cleanroom and mount each platter on a jig to access the data. Problem there is that it is rather expensive and it is possible that a head crash may have damaged the discs making parts of them unreadable.

[lionheart78]

If your friend would like to gamble by asking a data recovery specialist to retrieve the file, listening @NotFuzzyWarm advice is a good thing to do.  Though there is a risk involved, since we do not know if the person who will fix the HDD will be tempted to access the wallet that contains the BTC.

The decision is on your friend, 0.3 BTC is a big amount, but the risk of unrecoverable data is there, plus the human factor, make sure that the person who will handle the storage disk is really professional.

[HeatBit]

I remember when I was in school, I used to download alot of anime on two HDDs like this and that time I had access to free internet or unlimited data so I just kept downloading and one day I got back from school and it's no more working, I suspected my kid brother for it, I did some research online and it tunred out that a diode on the PCB is fractured, almost invincible to a naked eye...

I brought out my multimeter and the next diode to the fractured one also lose contact, I grabbed a soldering iron and led then replaced the diode from a old Philips TV panel and resolder the second one too, to my surprise it worked, I felt like a hero at the time.

Mind you, this lucky fix got to my head, I started thinking that I can fix anything, and I ended up killing my father's computer, it was a Pentium 4, I got the beating of my life on that evening. OP I suggest you follow my lead, if the disk isn't spinning or it's spinning very slowly something is wrong on the PCB (Printed Circuit Board).

Warning: if you are not good with boards or you have no idea about them at all it's better to follow. NotFuzzzyWarm advice.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive is the only one I will guarantee is 100% legit and safe to use. They have been in business for decades and have many many Fortune 500 companies as customers along with having several locations around the world. They have clean rooms if physical platter by platter disk recovery is needed.

[ABCbits]

Update.

Unfortunately I was unable to revive this piece of shit, I did all I could but it seems the disk has damaged or something, I took my time to get my hands on three different HDD extensions with IDE cable space.

If you mean the computer can't even detect there's plugged in HDD, then @NotFuzzyWarm suggestion is the only remaining option. But if the computer can detect there's HDD plugged in, check if software that can perform raw copy (such as https://hddguru.com/software/HDD-Raw-Copy-Tool/ on windows) can copy anything.

https://www.ontrack.com/en-us/data-recovery/hard-drive is the only one I will guarantee is 100% legit and safe to use. They have been in business for decades and have many many Fortune 500 companies as customers along with having several locations around the world. They have clean rooms if physical platter by platter disk recovery is needed.

Since you guarantee it, do you also know possible starting cost of their service? I only found they offer free consultation and post-recovery shipping.

[m2017]

Update.

Unfortunately I was unable to revive this piece of shit, I did all I could but it seems the disk has damaged or something, I took my time to get my hands on three different HDD extensions with IDE cable space.

I’m glad to know how your story turned out. It’s a pity that your efforts led to a dead end.

You’ve done everything you could, except for one thing: turning to a specialist \ service center, where experts might be able to diagnose the HDD, fix the fault, and restore access to the drive. Naturally, you shouldn’t mention that the drive might contain bitcoins (though a sharp engineer might figure it out on their own, and a less-than-scrupulous one might discover them if they manage to fix the issue). And what do you have to lose? Nothing at all - since you couldn’t gain access to the HDD anyway.

It's like the disk in the drive is stuck or maybe damaged, it's not my first time using one and while comparing them the working one spins more than this one, this one with BTC feels sluggish.

Have the moving parts of the disc rusted (given that the disc is about 20 years old)?

I am guessing it fell or dropped,

The exact cause could be determined through a full diagnostic of the disk. Maybe should actually reach out to a specialized center?

I am fed up and I don't know what else to do, I think it's time I quit trying, thanks for all your replies, I doubt at this point that there is something left that I can do.

I described one possible approach above. Another option is to simply drop the whole idea - especially since it’s your friend’s HDD, not yours. That’s his problem to deal with.

Then again, there’s no guarantee that your efforts will pay off; even if you do manage to regain access to this HDD, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be able to access the wallet containing bitcoins (assuming it’s even there). You might run into further issues - such as password requirements, corrupted files, or other obstacles, when trying to access the wallet itself. Damaged and unreadable sectors are not uncommon.

[Faisal2202]

You are completely missing the point here, and honestly, I think you are giving some pretty dangerous advice.  Its not about insulting their intelligence; but about basic competence.  If someone gets a 20-year-old drive with a legacy wallet on it and cant even identify the interface in front of them, its a dead giveaway that they have zero experience with this kind of tech.

If you dont even know what interface you are looking at, how are you going to safely image the drive, handle bit rot, or extract the wallet file without corrupting the data?

Besides, there is a massive difference between "seeking expert help" and "blindly trusting a stranger."  You can consult someone with technical expertise to figure out the hardware interface, set up a write-blocker, or walk through an air-gapped data recovery process without ever giving them access to the actual wallet file or private keys.

But we can't even ignore this thought that PrivacyG shared. If I have this drive, then I will have to find an expert first because there is none in my area. If I find one who acts like an expert but I don't know them or their intentions, and you don't know how these experts give disclaimers, they are sometimes rude too haha, like, "If anything goes wrong, we won't be responsible" haha.

Anyway, handing over the drive to another person, like his friend trusted OP, is one thing, but OP can't understand the interface because it's old. You guys could, so can you tell me if he gets an adapter and asks AI how to use it, would that not be enough?

What can go wrong if they buy the adapter, which they are definitely going to do, and then connect it to see if it works? If it doesn't, then they have to seek an expert who can get information directly from the chips or whatever it has, maybe disks. I also never saw this antique piece before haha.

[NotFuzzyWarm]

Anyway, handing over the drive to another person, like his friend trusted OP, is one thing, but OP can't understand the interface because it's old. You guys could, so can you tell me if he gets an adapter and asks AI how to use it, would that not be en

If you read back a few posts you'll find that the OP already tried that with several different IDE adapters.

Why use AI? It is not needed as the adapters - especially ones using USB for the pc connection - are pretty much idiot proof. Just plug things in and they work. If the drive does not respond or worse, does not spin up then a company like Ontrack will be needed.

Ontrack has many locations around the globe so at least one will be close to the OP. They are not some random guy who claims to be a data recovery 'Expert'. With a long established global company like them your data security is NOT an issue.

As others have noted, assuming the data can be recovered the bigger question is: do you have any passwords needed to access the wallet?

[Stalker22]

But we can't even ignore this thought that PrivacyG shared. If I have this drive, then I will have to find an expert first because there is none in my area. If I find one who acts like an expert but I don't know them or their intentions, and you don't know how these experts give disclaimers, they are sometimes rude too haha, like, "If anything goes wrong, we won't be responsible" haha.

That is also true.  I never said it was risk-free.

Anyway, handing over the drive to another person, like his friend trusted OP, is one thing, but OP can't understand the interface because it's old. You guys could, so can you tell me if he gets an adapter and asks AI how to use it, would that not be enough?

Perhaps.  It is hard to say in general.  It is also quite possible that he might make a very foolish beginner mistake and irreversibly destroy the data.

What can go wrong if they buy the adapter, which they are definitely going to do, and then connect it to see if it works? If it doesn't, then they have to seek an expert who can get information directly from the chips or whatever it has, maybe disks. I also never saw this antique piece before haha.

As with any piece of sophisticated electronics, there are plenty of things that can go wrong.  Did you know there are electronic components you can "fry" just by touching them with your bare hands?

[Vvang]

I gave up completely, closing this thread right away, thanks for your contributions everyone.