Tried to backup an old 20G HD that I found in a street abandoned PC. It took too, long to
copy, like 4 hours almost, just 2 partitions but gave approx. over 30 errors during copying
each partition. Then I got a message in red saying ntfs mount failed and mounting it as
read only. However, couldn't mount or read the files in it. This HD had a nice collection of songs of 500 Mb or so approx. and they wouldn't copy over.

Later on, I tried to reboot with another Live CD, got same error message, corrupt volume
unable to mount for the partitions on this drive. After shutdown, reconnecting the
drive to PC didn't help.

Tried to boot with Puppy Linux from my HD again, it failed with error Pausing when trying to
find the Puppy Personal file. Same error repeated twice. Removed this 20G HD and booted
my PC, it booted well and is working perfectly fine. Appears that 20G HD has reached its
end of life and is pretty much toast now. Interesting Experience.

Found many mini electronic items including USB cables, a kindle with a damaged screen, 8Gb USB drive, 2 Tb Seagate Internal HD, Laptop DVD rom drive, etc., Have to try these slowly and see if they work. Also found some Chinese mp3 CDs and a Black and Decker cordless drill.
My wish for finding smaller electronic devices came true today. Guess when folks move, these are discarded in bulk, so have to look very carefully. Made sure I didn't miss anything in the bin I found these.

The 2Tb HD is not detected and doesn't load, however I can feel it turn.
Wonder if it is too much for the PC.
Replugging it, restarting PC didn't help.
Bios also doesn't detect this HD.

Kindle 5.6.1.0.1
Kindle loads as USB drive in Linux after charging it is a bit over 3Gb
in space. Screen is certainly damaged for sure. Language set to
Chinese.

Is it detected in the BIOS??

Not detected in the BIOS. I felt it and feel the vibration when it turns, replugged
all cables to it and restarted PC, still not detected by BIOS.

The vibration means that power is working and it is spinning up. That it is not recognized may indicate anything from a simple communication problem with the connectors to a bad or fried controller on the drive.

Yes, other drives I have are recognized using the same SATA cable. So, the connector is ok.
Appears that the controller on the drive is bad or fried.
Wonder if there is any fix for this.

Edited to add:
Just saw this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCx3GOcRMIk
The Mobo is quite old and seems to be Sata 1 and it is likely
that the drive is Sata 2, so have to try it on a more recent PC.
Will save this for later.

It is possible to swap the drive controller. You search for another of the exact same model of drive and swap the boards.
Unless you need the data I'd not bother with a 20G drive.

A faulty 20G drive is a good source of magnets, screws, etc. Not much use otherwise. (Can make an impressive paperweight.)
A working one can be very useful, but this one sounds like it is about toasted.

Can learn to trouble shoot with faulty HD using this, can try different system rescue
CDs on this etc., Great for learning trouble shooting:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt4M9b9L2EI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfvwER9JwJc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Y7BniaRXg

I reflected on what kind of items will be thrown in trash, this helps a lot:
1. Mostly non functional and damaged items.
2. Obsolete items
3. Items that have no value almost
4. Discarded for declutter, move etc., These items folks might have better value.

Faulty and non working stuff is great to experiment with, open for parts etc.,
If life gives lemons, I try to make lemonade.

As an aside, I found an old colorfly CK4 Audio/Video player yesterday. It charges well and works ok on surface. So was wondering why it was thrown. These days one gets far better player. Also, this CK4 doesn't recognize many files and just says wrong file format. So, it is unreliable. However, it is ok for someone willing to use it with its SERIOUS limitations.

OK, I didn't think about you using it as a learning exercise, my thought was simply that old I wouldn't keep any data on it.
Try the freezer trick then, it does two things:
1) it will sometimes unstick a stuck bearing, though in this instance it sounds like thats not the issue since yours is spinning
2) electronics that fail when warm it will cool down so you can run for a few minutes to get data off of it until the failing component warms up again.

Thanks for this tip, will try sometime in future.

My related project is to try and open micro IT stuff like tablets, mp3 players, eReaders, Cell Phones etc., Watching related videos now and then. Atleast one can get the battery and a few screws for starters.
I have an old sony mp3 player NZF-S615F that I haven't charged in 3 years almost and was out of power. Charged it today and it charged fully very well, this is surprising. Battery deterioration if left uncharged doesn't seem to affect mp3 players as much.
Changing battery of mp3 player:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEFg3PA58Ik
http://tinyurl.com/ybot535z

Wonder if play lists created using Linux on my older PC will work on this mp3 player, will try this also sometime in future when I feel like it.

Few updates:

Kindle
Opened the broken kindle I got, broke the clips but it is a learning experience so ok. Cut the plastic cover of the battery when removing it as it was stuck to the kindle. Need to learn to remove the screen will reserve it for later.

Strongly suggest all reading this thread to watch youtube videos on replacing kindle screen and battery, good learning experience.

Old Nokia Phone
Removed this to pieces as much as possible. This was a project easier than the kindle. Getting used to handling smaller screws and related screw drivers with time.

Old Compaq PS2 KB issue
This KB used to work ok before for a long time. The surface was very dirty, not used for long, so I cleaned it with a wet brush and then dried it with hair dryer. It used to work ok before. Initially, I thought this can be the sticky keys issue.
The shift and ctrl keys on this KB have stopped working after this.

Rebooting PC didn't help. Tried a USB and then another PS2 KB on the same PC, these 2 worked ok. Will try again after another week, if it doesn't work still then perhaps it has lived its life and time to recycle it.

Updated to add:
Was told to clean under the keys, or remove the affected
keys and clean well below them. did all that, cleaned well with water, removed all debris even opened the kb and cleaned insides well, then replaced screws, dried well and tried again, didn't help, issue still exists. guess this kb
is toast. It is even putting random - now non stop sometimes. Also inserts - when down arrow is pressed.

Today's Find:
D-Link router with damaged wireless antenna and some nice cable to go along with it. Have to try it later and see if it works.

kids love to practice their tool skills, so i give them stuff to "screw around" with
and these old 5" hard drives are ideal - screws and parts are big enough for kids to handle, and the innards look really interesting.
we once had a 5-year-old who was able to not only disassemble, but also reassemble (!) it.

Starnet AR800 V2.5 ADSL2+ router
http://screenshots.portforward.com/r...StarNet/AR800/
192.168.12.1 is the IP for web interface interestingly.
http://www.official-drivers.com/inst...p?seed=starnet

Found the above router over 10 months ago, decided to try it now.
Its web interface IP is 192.168.12.1 unable to log into its webinterface
with admin/admin for username and pwd. tried a few others and it didn't work.
Only manual I can find for it is in Russian. Resetting it, restarting, replugging
it etc., didn't help.

I have a theory about this router/modem, I found it outside abandoned several months ago, guess it is toast, doesn't allow anyone to login, has frozen with unknown pwd., and reset fails. Perhaps that is why it was abandoned.

Was told to try to upgrade firmware indirectly and try, sometimes have to solder on a connector for a jtag port:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JTAG#Connectors
This is quite complicated and too much time.

Will reflect on it a bit, any thoughts on this are welcome.