Storage of every generation, 1996 to today

The drive in the loft, the box of Zip disks, the office server that was switched off in 2008. Old storage still holds data, and most of it can still be read.

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Why old storage needs a different approach

Storage has changed its connectors, its file systems and its ways of failing several times since the mid-1990s. A modern computer has no socket for an IDE or SCSI drive, cannot read a Mac OS 9 disk, and has never heard of a Jaz cartridge.

Recovering from these devices takes the right interface hardware, an understanding of how that generation of drives fails, and file system knowledge that goes back as far as the data does. PC-3000 supports hard drives from this whole period, which lets us treat a 1998 drive with the same control as a current one.

What age does to storage

Hard drives

Lubricants thicken, heads stick to platters and motors seize after years of standing. Data usually survives; starting the drive is the risk.

Flash memory

Cells slowly lose charge when left unpowered for many years, especially worn ones.

Removable disks

Magnetic coatings shed, and the drives that read them wear out faster than the disks.

Electronics

Capacitors in power supplies and on drive boards fail with age and can take other parts with them.

If something has been stored for a long time, the kindest thing you can do is not plug it in.

In this section

Get a price from a technician

Tell us the make, the model and what has gone wrong. A technician replies with a price and the quickest way to get your laptop to us – normally the same working day.

020 7237 6805

Creative IT workshop
Unit 1, 80 Willow Walk, London SE1 5SY
Monday to Saturday, 9am–6pm