Hi,

I’m writing because I have been stuck for a long time on something that might be trivial for those who know. But for me, I swear I’ve tried to document myself, search the internet, and I don’t find safe solutions.

I want to resurrect and old external HD from ~10-15 years ago, which I think may contain photos from back then I don’t have elsewhere and would love to recover.

The HD could be used with USB or eSATA connection. Back in the day, I always used it with USB, as I didn’t even have eSATA cables. But at one point, the USB socket broke (or that’s what I think. If it’s not the socket but the disk itself, then this would be hopeless, but I do think it was the socket).

So the obvious way to try to use it again is to connect via eSATA. OK, I bought an eSATA to USB adapter, which I think should be fit for purpose. But the problem is that to use the disk via eSATA, it seems that I also need to give it external power, and I don’t think it came with a power supply (IIRC it worked without it when using USB… anyway, even if it did come with one, it would have long been lost). The socket where the power supply should be plugged is shown in this photo: https://imgur.com/a/m2szezI

I have found out that the drawing means negative polarity in the center and positive in the exterior, but there I’m stuck, because I have several issues:

  • First of all, it says 5V but doesn’t say the amperage. I’m finding power sources with different amounts of A or mA. What would work? And what is even more important, could I break the HD if I plug a source with the wrong amount of amperes? I really don’t want to lose my last chances of recovering the disk.
  • Secondly, what is the kind of socket? I find that there are a lot of different ones, with names in mm (like 5.5 times 2.5mm, 2.5 times 0.8mm, 2.0 times 0.6mm, etc.). Is there a way to know or deduce which one it is, other than just trying?
  • The negative center polarity seems to be a pain, because there are power supplies that have a lot of different plugs so I could try to solve the point above by trial and error, but all of them seem to be positive center polarity. Is there a way to fix this (maybe positive to negative center polarity adapter, or something like that)? Or are there any such “universal” power sources with many plugs that have negative center polarity? (I couldn’t find any).

If you point me to particular products, I would be grateful if they can be bought in the EU (as I’m from there). But if you only know them in shops from America, etc. it can still be helpful, I guess I can try to find the equivalent here. The problem, as you can see, is that I’m so lost with this that right now I don’t even know what exactly I should look for.

Also please keep in mind that I’m a software guy and really bad at DIY stuff, so if there are solutions that involve opening things, cutting cables, etc. I’d rather not use them (if it all ends up coming down to that, I guess I’d just end up paying a professional to do it rather than doing it myself, because I would probably break something).

PS: if you think this is not the right subreddit for a question like this and I should post it elsewhere, please let me know. I wasn’t too sure where to post (because who would know this better: HD people, electronics people…? I don’t really know)