Old (WIN2K) Hard Drives...

This may be a silly question, but are these (attached) any good for anything?

They are 4 gig HD's from the late 90s with Windows 2000 (Professional) loaded on them.

Isn't Windows 2000 still desired by many people, or am I just way behind the times............?

Thanks in advance.

 

Windows 2K is still used by a few people, but the small size of those HD's makes them almost useless.

 

Don't feel like those HDD are old. I found an old dell that had two 1gb HDD in it. My friends wife gave me a load of old comp, one (still works) uses the old five and one half floppy. Now what would I do with that dino.?

 

The 1GB HD's in that computer ARE old, as in Jurassic period. They are probably usable as storage space, but their life expectancy might be questionable.

 

Like Puppywunder58 said Win2000 is still used by a lot of people - but that is kind of a moot point. It would be diffucult to install that drive in a random computer and have it boot properly without some major tinkering with the OS (at least for me it would). Also I am not sure if such a thing would violate some aspect of 2000's EULA.

But the drives themselves are not useless. If a person has a computer system that serves one or two limited purposes then the drive size is not much of an issue - I have a 4gb drive installed in a PC I built for my dad as a second drive. I put a restore partion on it and leave it unplugged. The grand kids like to get on his PC and they often mess it up. I just restore it from the drive and update the OS (XP) as needed. As recently as 2007 I had a PII PC that had a 1gb drive running weather equipment and software for me. The device and software didn't need any bigger or faster drive (or faster processor, for that matter).

It just depends on the application someone might have for such a drive. As Puppywunder58 said life expectancy is a concern.

 

Hey thank you all for the replies...fun to hear everyones take on this, and the stories about "older" ("Jurassic period" ~ HAHA) machines/hardware, systems, etc.

My thinking now is to cut these puppies open and salvage the magnets out of them...that's always fun too! :-D

Thanks again -
Glenn again

 

My thinking now is to cut these puppies open and salvage the magnets out of them...that's always fun too! :-D

How unique it would be to make refrigerator magnets out of the discs inside, don't think it's gonna work though.:-D

Oh yeah, silly me, there aren't magnets in an HD.

 

Well there most certainly are magnets in HD's...at least there were in the two that I've already cut open - and here's the kicker - they're the "Rare-Earth" variety ... very strong little magnets.

 

Well the discs themselves aren't really magnetic.

 

If there were magnets in an HD, wouldn't they corrupt the data on the discs due to the close proximity?confused:confused

 

I stand corrected. I found this article

http://www.tokyopc.org/newsletter/2002/10/old_HD_magnets.html

 

BTW, because the magnets are "rare earth" they are considered toxic.

 

Thanks for that, but I believe that is (technically) only if they are cut-into or drilled-into...