My dad has an old hard drive. Two Firewire ports, an eSATA port and a “Hi-Speed 2.0 USB” port. He wants to get all the data transferred to a drive with more modern connections.
I have a computer with SATA ports that I have no emotional attachment to I’m letting them borrow. They need an adapter that can’t get there before I leave.
They are quite low-tech, so I’ll need a constant visual to make sure they’re doing things correctly. They have no headset and the computer has no internal mic, so remote connection is the best option.
It cannot connect to WiFi remotely, so it needs a direct connection to their modem.
I gave up on Windows years ago, and it would be too much of a hassle to get set up on there anyway, so it has Linux Mint instead. My mom claims she needs a "backup computer," so this looks like the best way to introduce her to Linux.
So, our path of least resistance is currently, using an eSATA-to-SATA cable, connected to a workstation with its top popped off, itself sitting under the modem in their kitchen, with Linux Mint, that they’ll connect to via PuTTY while they have a video call.
When you’re the only comp sci grad out to second cousins, expect to get called upon for this sort of thing.
