Enclosure for PATA external disk

[DR M]

Hello, LzD friends.  :)

I have a dream problem.

Some weird/bad/unlucky incidents occurred to a friend of mine. Her external disk died suddenly. She only cares about hundreds of family photos saved in there. They are valuable for her, as she lost her father recently. She took the hard disk to a technician, who tried to recover the disk's content, but unfortunately without a result. Her only hope was an old HP laptop she had, but the laptop could not even start to log in Windows. So the technician took off the hard disk, only to discover that it was a very old model (he talked about PATA instead of SATA). He can't help her because he hasn't got something for it.

My question: Can an enclosure make the job, as for normal hard drives? Can we just order the proper case, connect it via usb cable with a computer and see what is inside the hard disk?

Two models I found in Amazon (I'm searching in Amazon.uk, as if I order from US items won't come in time and there will be also extra taxes):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Storite-Technotech-Aluminum-External-Enclosure-Supports/dp/B079NWHQXH/ref=sr_1_11?keywords=case+for+PATA+external+disk&qid=1574878419&s=computers&sr=1-11

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drive-Aluminum-External-Enclosure-Capacity/dp/B000XPS3U6/ref=sr_1_8?keywords=case+for+PATA+external+disk&qid=1574878419&s=computers&sr=1-8

Thank you!

[Digerati]

I would not bother with an enclosure for such old PATA/IDE technology hard drives that likely will never be used again. I'd go with something like this adapter. At least then it could be used with current SATA drives too.

That said, if the old drive died, there is nothing to suggest any adapter or enclosure will do any good. Clearly, if these were so valuable, she should have had multiple copies on different drives because "all" drives will fail - eventually.

[DR M]

Thanks, Digerati.

I'd go with something like this adapter. At least then it could be used with current SATA drives too.

You mean one of those links I posted above? Which one would you suggest?

That said, if the old drive died, there is nothing to suggest any adapter or enclosure will do any good. Clearly, if these were so valuable, she should have had multiple copies on different drives because "all" drives will fail - eventually.

Sometimes you have to get through this to learn... We hope that the disk is OK. If not, she will deal with it.

[Digerati]

You mean one of those links I posted above? Which one would you suggest?

??? Oops! Sorry. I could have sworn I included the link.

I meant one of these.

[DR M]

You mean one of those links I posted above? Which one would you suggest?

??? Oops! Sorry. I could have sworn I included the link.

I meant one of these.

OUPS! No sellers are currently delivering this item here...

Is this something similar?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004JO1Z52/ref=psdc_430470031_t1_B07DKB8NDC

[Digerati]

The link I provided was from Amazon UK. But they appear to be the same thing, just different USB cable.

[DR M]

The link I provided was from Amazon UK. But they appear to be the same thing, just different USB cable.

Yes, I know. Unfortunately not all the sellers deliver items to a small place, even though in the EU. Thank you. I'll suggest that one then.