IDE hard drives don't fit in my dock

I never noticed this before today. I was testing hard drives to see if they work before wiping them. But some of the IDE drives didn't fit. I thought it was a problem with my dock but then lined one up with one that I knew fit the other day and saw that where the data and power cables go didn't line up the same on the two drives. Just was wondering if anyone else ever ran into this.



Fortunately, I have an external hard drive enclosure I can use. Those things are a pain, but do come in handy from time to time. If there's a better way, I'm all ears.

As a side note, some have tested okay (using Seagate's "SeaTools for Windows") but are clearly marked "NG" on the label. I'm talking about HDs with 100G or more. That would kind of make it hard to sell them, wouldn't it? I can't help but wonder if it was intentional.

As a side note, some have tested okay (using Seagate's "SeaTools for Windows") but are clearly marked "NG" on the label. I'm talking about HDs with 100G or more. That would kind of make it hard to sell them, wouldn't it? I can't help but wonder if it was intentional.

I have one here that came out of our home computer, it'll run for a short while then the bearing gets hot and starts seizing.

As a side note, some have tested okay (using Seagate's "SeaTools for Windows") but are clearly marked "NG" on the label. I'm talking about HDs with 100G or more. That would kind of make it hard to sell them, wouldn't it? I can't help but wonder if it was intentional.

I have one here that came out of our home computer, it'll run for a short while then the bearing gets hot and starts seizing.

My favorite IDE "dock" is made from an old external CD ROM drive.
I took the guts out of the enclosure & mounted them to a piece of plywood.
I use a standard IDE cable and a 4 pin Molex extension for the power cable.
It fits all IDE drives and has outlasted several of my store bought SATA docks.
I love making my own test fixtures: Used to do that when I was a tech...