Running SR on very old computers and < 64MB RAM and 20 to 30 year old hard drives?

[coffeeprogrammer]

Two part question: I’ve bought some old computers on ebay and some of them were sold without a hard drive or said in the listing that the hard drive only makes a clicking sounds, which is what I got. I also have a something like a 400MB hard drive that I don’t remember where I got it and have yet to put it in a system. I have gotten some of the old systems running with those flash card to IDE adapters, but am wondering if would be a good idea to buy used hard drives 20 or 30 years old? That is pretty old and if someone had their computer on all the time, they could have ten years or more of use on them.

So the first part of my question is

1) Do at some point hard drives simply fail and nothing is going to fix them? Is there something about the mechanics of hard drives that means at some point they will fail and there is nothing that can be done, not even SpinRite will keep them running?

2) Some of these systems have less than 64MB or RAM, my 486 has 16 MB of RAM I think. Does that mean I should run SpinRite 6.0 rather than 6.1? I think I remember Steve saying like that 6.1 uses a 64MB buffer in RAM as part of the speed increase, but I am not sure I remember that correctly or not.

Thanks.

 

[peterblaise]

So long as acquiring older drives is cheap, go for it.

I have working ones that are 40+ years old.

Clean all connectors, including those between circuit cards and the
drive body, and coat with Caig DeoxIT, then keep them at room
temperature during use via supplemental cooling fans.

- - - - -

You can try upgrading RAM chips - if 'larger' fit and work, go ahead.

I've got one old PC up to 384 MB in PC100 chips via 3 x 128 MB
modules - wahoo!

I keep old RAM and try whatever fits, and sometimes I win.

 

[DanR]

1) Do at some point hard drives simply fail and nothing is going to fix them? Is there something about the mechanics of hard drives that means at some point they will fail and there is nothing that can be done, not even SpinRite will keep them running?

Yes. Spindle bearings can stiffen up as their lube degrades with time. The linkages moving the drive heads can degrade with time, causing read/write errors. The drive heads can contact (i.e. crash into) the drive platter surface, destroying themselves, the surface, and data. These are all things that SpinRite cannot fix.

2) Some of these systems have less than 64MB or RAM, my 486 has 16 MB of RAM I think. Does that mean I should run SpinRite 6.0 rather than 6.1? I think I remember Steve saying like that 6.1 uses a 64MB buffer in RAM as part of the speed increase, but I am not sure I remember that correctly or not.

Correct. SpinRite 6.1 is designed to work with newer system hardware that SpinRite 6.0 can no longer cope with. Thus. SpinRite 6.1 may have compatibility issues with some older system hardware that SpinRite 6.0 will run just fine on. One such compatibility issue is older systems with less than 64 MB ram. Only use SpinRite 6.0 on such systems.

 

[PHolder]

Do at some point hard drives simply fail and nothing is going to fix them

They're mechanical devices. They wear in various mechanical ways. Eventually they're going to fail in such a way that no amount of software compensation can recovery from. Clicking at power up is usually NOT a good sign for any recovery.