First post, by JK1984
I’m looking for options on the easiest way to make back up of an entire hard drive from a 486 computer that I recently acquired. The hard drive has all the original software still installed, just like if you purchased it today 30 years later. I’d really like to preserve this.
The easiest way I can think of would be to use an IDE compact flash adapter (which I have no experience with) But unfortunately with the way the case is set up I cannot mount it with a pci bracket as planned. I only have one IDE channel and I wouldn’t be able to physically connect the adapter with the same IDE cable from the front of the case to the back of the case.
I could mount the compact flash adapter in the 5.25” bay under the cd rom drive. But I’m not thrilled with having the adapter mounted on the front of the case (externally), especially If I can’t find a close match with the case color. (Beige/light grey) If I tried to mount the adapter internally, I’m not sure if I’d have enough clearance to change flash cards. It’s a pretty tight squeeze in there.
The last option would be to buy an ISA IDE controller card and connect the compact flash adapter with that so I can use a PCI bracket mount. But I’m not sure if that would be ideal? Or if it would cause any conflicts considering I have my CD ROM drive connected to my sound card. Plus I’d be using up precious real-estate.
I have also tried connecting the hard drive as a slave to another system I have but the BIOS doesn’t recognize the drive at all.
In the end, running through all these options, I may have to settle with temporarily connecting the adapter to copy the files and then disconnecting it when done.
Does anyone have any other ideas?